


Holo-Man

by LizzieRimmsy



Series: Red Dwarf: Untitled [1]
Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe, Doctor Who References, Gen, Mild Language, No Smut, Non-Graphic Violence, Torchwood References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:20:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LizzieRimmsy/pseuds/LizzieRimmsy
Summary: Red Dwarf fanfic - Set right before series X - While the rest of the crew board another vessel for supplies, Rimmer stays behind. The ship is stricken hard by an unknown force. Things begin to get weird and intense after that.





	1. And Who Are You?

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank my betas. (You know who you are) This is part one of a series of three. There are some graphic moments, though I don't mention blood, gore, etc.
> 
> While I did tag Torchwood it's purely just references. At no point does anyone from Torchwood show up. (Yet ;3)
> 
> Also I will be posting ALL of the chapters mostly at once, since they're finished except for some minor edits here and there. 
> 
> Hope you like it! Leave a comment or "kudos" if you do.

The Red Dwarf crew had been running low on meds and food for the last two months. They've been looting ships and getting handouts however they could. Lister was all too proud to be petty, but for Rimmer it was nothing new.

"We must've been to every ship, every planet by now." Lister sighed aloud. He sat in the common room, staring at what may be the last bit of curry he had.

Alarms began to wail. Red Dwarf's autopilot had found something on their radar: Something new. Everyone piled into the drive room and assumed their usual positions.

"What the smeg is that?" Lister wondered.

"I'm not sure, sir. The readout says 'Dreadnaught'." Kryten replied.

The name alone already had Rimmer's stomach in knots. It looked like an abandoned station just floating out in space. It was partially destroyed. There was no telling who or what did it.

"Never heard of it." Lister said.

Over the last few weeks they've discovered loads of planets and stations that weren't even on the map. This was the twentieth one so far.

"I think maybe it was meant to stay that way." Rimmer said to Lister. "Either way we should keep moving."

"Now hold on! There might be something left on it."

"Lister, look at it! It's tattered, there's no way even a microbe of food made it through whatever happened on there!"

"There is a beacon, sirs. There could be survivors on board." Kryten told them.

"See?" Lister said as he looked back to see Rimmer giving him that same stare of contempt he always gave him. "We're going."

He hopelessly shook his head. "Nope. We're staying on course." He firmly stood his ground.

"Rimmer, don't argue with me." he chided.

"As your superior—"

Lister sighed exasperatedly, "Here we go."

Rimmer glared at him once more before retrying his futile attempt to pull rank. " _As your superior_ , what I say goes. And I say... we're not going!"

Lister took a deep breath. "Show of hands: All in favour of staying alive?" He and Cat raised their hands. "All in favour of dying a slow, needless death?" Then they put their hands down. "Two to zero. We win."

"Well, of course Bog Bot and I won't object! We can't die of starvation!" he exclaimed.

"That's not exactly true, sir. Since you and Mr. Lister are connected, in a way, if he dies of starvation or say of an untreated infection, you'll also die."

Rimmer looked dumbfounded as Lister just sat there and grinned.

"Human: One. Hologram: Zero." Lister smugly said.

Rimmer sighed. "Fine, but I'm staying here. I'm not setting foot on that thing."

"Even better." He grinned. 

* * *

The three of them left on Starbug to go aboard the station, leaving Rimmer by himself on Red Dwarf like he insisted. He decided he'd stay on Red Dwarf, manning the radio in case there was an emergency. It wasn't often that he had time to himself, sharing a bunk with Lister and living with two other unbelievable gits. He felt like he was back in his childhood days, feeling totally and utterly alone. As much as he couldn't stand their company, he couldn't stand their absence either. He sat at the cockpit's radio console, slowly becoming bored and staring at the walls. It felt like hours had gone by when, in actuality it had only been thirty minutes.

"How are you holding up, sir?" Kryten asked over the radio.

Hearing his voice in the dead silence startled him; he jumped out of his hologrammic skin. After he caught his breath from irrationally panicking, he replied, "I'd be better if we got moving. How much longer?"

"You wanted to stay behind, Rimmer. That's on you." Lister chided. "Anyway, we'll be back soon. Just making one last sweep before we go."

Rimmer sighed as he fell back in his chair. If it weren't for the fact that they needed the supplies, and if everyone else wouldn't be cross with him, he would've left them behind a while ago. Plus that one minuscule fact that he, too, would die if anything happened to Lister. On the other hand he was trying to be less of an asshole, less of a coward, and more noble.

He leaned over the console and spoke into the radio, "Lister, if you're all not back in fifteen minutes..."

"I told ya, we'll be ba—" Then there was static.

Fear washed over Rimmer's face. "Lister?" He started to panic. He tried again. "Anybody, do you read me?!" But there was still no reply.

Out of nowhere something struck the side of Red Dwarf, causing it to rattle slightly and lose power for a short moment. Rimmer screamed out and hid under the desk. When he found there was no imminent doom, he crawled out. From what he could see on the glitchy monitors, there didn't appear to be any structural damage to the ship or meteors in the area. He smacked the console to make the monitors come in clearer. Still nothing. He grabbed a hold of the stress toy Kryten recently gave him; it squeaked with every squeeze.

"What the hell was that?!" he demanded to no one.

Suddenly, he heard a knocking sound. It seemed to be coming from the air lock. "It couldn't be them already." he thought. He mustered up the courage to head to the air lock and see what it was. Although it wouldn't be much of a weapon, he brought his stress toy along with him. At least, by throwing it, it would make for a distraction.

Cautiously, he made his way to the air lock. Every little noise or shift in the ship's structure frightened him. Even his own footsteps sent his heart racing up until he realised it was only him. He rolled his eyes at how ridiculous he was being.

  
The knocking continued the entire way there. Suddenly, it stopped just seconds before he got to the door. Looking completely perplexed, with one arched eyebrow and while crinkling his nose, he peered into the window of the door. Nothing was there.

"Great, I've gone space crazy." he thought aloud.

A being shot up into view. Rimmer screamed in terror and stumbled backwards, all the while putting his hands up as if he were going to do some sort of karate. He backed up so far that he wound up hitting the corridor wall. He grasped the wall, which scared him a bit as well. When stopped to get a better look he began to calm down. He was more confused than anything else. It was a human: A female human.

"Well, are you letting me in or what?!" she asked. She spoke with a Welsh accent.

"What?" he asked, incredulously. He didn't understand how she got into the airlock without anyone else opening it.

"Let.. me.. in!" she snapped.

He was more or less asking from being lost about the whole situation, not asking her to repeat herself. He could hear her just fine. "A— Are you dangerous?" he quivered.

"Does it look like I am?" she sarcastically asked.

This is why he somewhat hated the Welsh. They were always so rude. Although maybe he just had a knack for bringing it out of them.

He walked up to the door again to get a closer look at her. The name on her suit read Harkness, but he wasn't sure how credible that was. For all he knew she stole it from someone else. It wasn't a normal space suit either. It looked like it was meant for combat. It wasn't military grade, at least not the military he knew of. She was carrying some technology he'd never seen before as well. The main thing he noticed was some kind of leather wrist brace.

"How do I know you won't kill me?" Rimmer asked.

She tilted her head slightly. "Judging by the giant H on your forehead you're already dead, right?"

He was about to go on a tangent about how his death three million years ago was better than someone whom had lost all control of their bodily functions. She took her helmet off, finally revealing her face, which distracted him. He was somewhat stunned to see how gorgeous she was; medium brown hair, bright blue eyes, skin like a porcelain doll.

She looked into his hazel eyes, knowing that gaining his trust wouldn't be easy. He'd just have to take her word for it. "Look," She held out her arms. "I'm unarmed: I'm harmless. Unless you flush me out of the air lock. In which case you'll be in for a world of hurt."

His face scrunched up as thought about letting her in for all but a second. "You'll have to be more compelling than that. Sorry." His hand was hovering over the open button.

"Wait!" she yelled. He stopped. Frantically, she tried to think of something compelling. "I— hang on." She ducked down for a brief moment. The sound of electricity buzzing; a blue glow emitted from the air lock. She popped back up. "I've got holographic pizza. Just for you."

His eyes darted from the pizza box to her, back and forth for a few seconds. "What kind is it?" he asked with a look of perplexity. He was beginning to wonder how she got it without going anywhere. She opened the box to show him. It was a pepperoni. "Too bad." he thought. His favourite was quattro formaggi with extra olives. However, Holly left his "human needs mode" on, and he felt everything a living person would, including hunger. He was starving, and food was food.

He shrugged. "Good enough."

He opened the air lock door, and she waltzed on in, looking up and down the corridor. He snatched the pizza box away from her, and proceeded to eat. He watched her come inside; he had a big mouthful of pizza. She extended her hand to shake his. He quickly shoved the last big bite of pizza into his mouth, practically gagging on it, and shook her hand.

"Aria Harkness." She looked him up and down. "And who are you?" she asked, flirting with him right off the bat, even though he was hardly sexy at that particular moment. He was fraught and greasy from the pizza.

He swallowed his food, and stood tall. "Arnold J. Rimmer, Senior Officer of the JMC mining ship, Red Dwarf." Out of habit he saluted her.

She gave him a confused stare. "At ease, soldier." Aria chortled. She didn't know how else to respond. " _You're going to be interesting_." she thought to herself. Regardless, she was grateful to even be on the ship. "Thank you for letting me in." she sighed as she began walking away.

He hurried after her, just to make sure she wasn't going to off to misbehave. "Ah, excuse me?"

She stopped walking and turned around.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked.

"Drive room is up there, yeah?" She pointed ahead. He nodded. She looked at him; her eyebrows raised, and she quickly smiled. Then she turned back around to head for the cockpit. He still followed her. She felt uncomfortable, but she knew why he was closely stalking her. He didn't trust her enough to be meandering about on her own.


	2. Welcome to Red Dwarf

After what seemed to be a long walk through the corridor, maybe because it was just excruciatingly awkward, they made it to the drive room. Rimmer sat down at the console, flipping switches, trying to establish some form of contact with Lister or one of his other crewmates. Aria stood watching him; studying him. She knew he was peculiar and fascinating from the moment their eyes locked.

"You should sit. This might take a while." Rimmer told her.

She did, all the while still fixated on him. For some strange reason she couldn't look away.

He could feel her eyes boring into him. He lifted his head up, slightly turning it so that she's in his peripherals. "Missy, it is impolite to stare."

"Sorry." She grinned as she twirled around in the drive room chair, staring at the ceiling. "Radio should be working again."

He looked over at Aria, mouth agape and brow furrowed. "How did y—"

"Rimmer? Rimmer are you there?" The radio did in fact work again. It was in and out but it worked. Lister was on the other end.

Rimmer was stunned, and almost forgot what he was doing. He stammered his words at first. "Ye- Yes, I'm here! What's wrong?"

"Where the smeg have you been, man?! We've been trying to contact you for the last five minutes!" Lister exclaimed.

"We've had a... tiny situation here but everything is fine now." he nervously said.

"You sure?" Lister asked.

"Absolutely!" Rimmer squeakily replied. It definitely wasn't fine.

"Well, we're on our way back. Just about 200 clicks out."

Rimmer prepped the ship for their arrival, and Aria was back to watching him. He glanced back, did a double-take, then stared intently at her. She smiled while he looked perplexed. He had no idea what to make of her. Nor did he have a clue how to explain to the rest that somehow they now had a new, if temporary, member.

"Let me just make something clear, you're not staying. First chance we get we're dropping you off somewhere." he insisted.

She nodded. "Okay."

"And then you're on your own." he added.

"Fine." She was sceptical of him.

He turned to fully face her. "Comprendre?"

She nodded again. "Oui."

* * *

 

Once everyone else returned Rimmer left to go greet the others, and Aria left after him. They came from up the stairs where the shuttles were docked, carrying a box of goods. It didn't appear that much was in it. They hauled out three small crates total.

"Gentleman!" Rimmer rather gleefully exclaimed, which worried Lister. He was anything but a gleeful guy.

"You're being cheerful. You feeling okay?" Lister asked.

"Me? I'm fine! Couldn't be more hunky dorier." His squeaky voice told he was lying, but Lister wasn't going to pry. "Is this everything?" he asked Lister.

"Yeah." He patted the crates. "It's not much. Just about a week's worth of food. We'll have to ration it."

"What about the beacon?"

Kryten shrugged. "We lost it as soon as we got there." Moments later he noticed Rimmer's stress toy on the floor of the corridor. "Sir, why is your stress reliever all the way out here?"

Rimmer's eyes widened. He couldn't think of an explanation that didn't make him sound pathetic. When he picked it up to hand it to Rimmer it squeaked, causing Aria to snort and giggle like a school girl. Rimmer didn't know she was there behind him. He had fully expected her to stay in the drive room, even though he didn't actually tell her to. He didn't think he'd have to.

She leant to the side, waving at the rest of the crew. "Hello..."

The rest of them awkwardly waved back.

"Since when did we start accepting new crew members?" Lister asked.

"We don't." Rimmer responded. Before Lister could ask another question, he added, "She just... popped in!!" They still look confused. "What? I can't explain things any more clearer for you, you gits!"

Aria almost looked disgusted with his behaviour. "Is _everyone_ a git to you?"

"Oh, don't start!" he chided her. "I can still change my mind about you, you know."

They were bickering like an old married couple already. Their similarities were uncanny. They both exchanged dirty looks, while the others stood gawking at how there was actually a female version of Rimmer that wasn't from a parallel universe.

"If had a pound for every time I heard someone say that to me..." she muttered.

Rimmer looked away, pursing his lips in frustration.

Aria looked to everyone else, completely ignoring their confused gazes. "Is there somewhere we can all talk?" she wondered.

* * *

They all went into Lister's room, and sat at the table. She placed her leather brace onto the table, and they all look perplexed by it. "Vortex manipulator. It can send me anyplace, to any time."

"Wha? Like time travel?" Lister asked.

"Yes." she replied.

Cat picked it up and started fiddling with it. She swiped it out of his hands, and he hissed at her. She didn't really seem all that phased by it.

She looked to Rimmer, giving him a deadpan stare. "...And here I thought you were the odd one."

"Is that how you got here?" Rimmer asked.

She nodded. "I was... in a battle of sorts. I used it to get away. I only meant to go elsewhere on the station we were on." She looked at the vortex manipulator. "I think this picked up your signal, faint as it was." She told them that her arrival on Red Dwarf caused a minor EMP, which temporarily knocked out their communications, lights and monitors.

Kryten asked, "May I see that, ma'am?" She handed it to him to examine. "It's truly extraordinary! It can take you trillions of years into the future!"

This began putting ideas in Lister's head, though he didn't dare voice them.

She deeply inhaled and told them, "It was my father's. It was locked in a United Nations Intelligence Task force facility when I found it. I stole it back. His... 'friend' wasn't too happy about that, let me tell you..."

The more information she divulged, the more confused they all became.

"This 'friend' won't be after it, will he?" asked Rimmer.

She shrugged. "I wouldn't rule anything out, but if he does, he's not really dangerous."

"Well, if you need a place to stay, you can stay here." Lister said to her.

She scoffed. "If _he'll_ have me." She pointed at Rimmer. "He wanted to leave me somewhere."

"You what?" Lister looked at Rimmer.

Rimmer didn't have to justify himself. He felt he was right.

"Are you insane!?" Lister asked.

"Do you even have to ask that?" Cat wondered.

"It's fine. Really. I wanted to get away, and I guess I will have once I'm dropped... wherever." She was rather passive-aggressive about it, though. She'd love to be on a space ship full-time.

"You see? She said it's fine!" Rimmer insisted.

Lister couldn't believe he was that cold. "Rimmer, come on!" he chided. "Look at her! What's she gonna do? Besides cause your period to sync up with her's."

Aria let out a hearty laugh, then cleared her throat when Rimmer glanced over at her. "Sorry." Aria muttered. She still had a slight grin when he looked back at Lister.

"Listy, we can't trust her!" he exclaimed.

"We? You mean you can't trust her!"

"Exactly!" he affirmed with a nod. "For all we know she might kill us all in our sleep!"

Aria sheepishly raised a hand.

"What?" he indignantly asked.

"Technically you're already dead, sir." She grudgingly bared a smile. "Just throwing that out there."

He rolled his eyes, shaking his head. "I'm not changing my mind."

Lister stood up, and walked over to Cat and Kryten. "Someone back me up here?"

"She seems harmless to me, sir." Kryten said.

Lister smirked.

Rimmer scoffed. "Like Captain Bog Bot's affirmation means anything."

She sat down next to Rimmer. She placed her hand on his forearm, to which he raised an eyebrow. "How can I get you to trust me?"

He looked down at her hand. "For starters you can get your tiny mitt off my arm."

Aria quickly pulled it away and placed it on her lap. "And?"

"And stop staring at me! I don't like it. Makes me feel like there's something wrong with me." Rimmer snipped.

Lister wanted badly to say something but he kept his mouth shut.

She asked, "Anything else?"

"What's in it for us? What can you do?"

"Well... I'm pretty decent at torturing a confession out of someone, sir." She went off his look of perplexity and gave him a better, serious answer. "I'm a quick learner. Anything you need me to do, I'll do it. What do you say?" He didn't answer for a few moments. She thought for sure it was still a no.

He looked around at everyone else, who were eager and willing to have her on board. He did have to commend her for calling him "sir", and for respecting his authority, even if he was realistically second technician. He was still a higher rank than her.

He took a deep breath and let it out harshly. "Fine. You can stay." he sighed.

She was relieved. She truly didn't want to be marooned on some random planet, left to die alone. She suspected he didn't want that either. At least she hoped. She felt compelled to hug him but restrained herself from doing so. He didn't seem like much of a hugger to her. Instead she gave Lister and everyone else a big hug, while he sat there, feeling put out and ignored.

Lister said to her, "Welcome to Red Dwarf."


	3. Words He So Longed For

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still don't know how I feel about this one. (Mainly because of the Ace mention. It's all still confusing to me, even after watching the show five times through.) But others liked it, so I won't complain too much.

Barely two hours into her stay and she was already getting on Rimmer's nerves. He could hear loud music being played all the way from D deck. He knew it wasn't Lister — it didn't sound the same. No one else seemed to care about the loud, annoying music except for him. He stormed into her room where she was dancing. And not very well, either. At least not to Rimmer. "Aria!" he barked.

She stopped briefly to ask, "What?"

"Are you having some sort of seizure?" he asked.

Aria stopped dancing once more, and this time didn't start back up again. She simply glared, giving no verbal response whatsoever. 

"Could you turn it down just a smidgen?"

"It's not even late! And no one else is complaining, are they?"

"I'm complaining!"

Her music switched to Julien K's _Photo Voltaire_. "Ooh, I love this one!" She turned it up louder.

He chided, "Stop it!" Though he'd never admit it to her face, he did find the song catchy.

"You know, Rimmer, you'll never get that stick out of your arse if you don't relax." she retorted. He stood in the doorway, fuming with nostrils flared. "C'mere. Dance with me."

"No." he hastened to say.

She wouldn't have it. She grabbed him by the arm and pulled him in, forcing him to dance with her. He staggered around a bit from the sheer force of being yanked into the room.

He didn't actually dance with her, he just stood in the room rather than the doorway. "I have better things to do than shake my posterior, thank you very much." He looked smug as if he were too good to dance.

"What? Stare at the walls? Have an existential crisis?"

She was only half right. He was going to stare at the ceiling rather than the wall.

He watched her poorly dance. There wasn't anything else he could do. She wouldn't listen to him, and honestly, he didn't want to leave. He figured she had to be in her mid twenties, maybe early thirties. True, age was only a number, but he didn't want to be "that guy". He felt weird just considering the possibility of being intimate with her. As she mouthed the lyrics he became more mesmerised by her.

She eventually noticed him watching her. "Now look who's staring." she retorted. 

"I was— I didn't—" He could barely form a full sentence. Finally he uttered, "Sorry."

She chuckled. "It's okay." She stopped her dancing, and sat on the bed.

He grudgingly smiled at her. He couldn't believe he was for once feeling something other than anger, fear or paranoia. For the first time in years he felt compassion for someone — someone he hardly even knew. Oddly, it felt amazing.

"Rimmer, I get the feeling you want to talk." She patted the other side of the bed, signalling that he could sit by her.

"Oh, please. Call me Arnold. Or 'Big Man'." he said with a grin.

"I shudder to think of what 'Big Man' implies." She managed to get him to laugh a bit. She confessed, "You know, this entire time I've been trying to figure you out. I think I'm beginning to."

He scoffed. "You've got nothing. I am unfigureoutable, Aria. This nut isn't meant for cracking!" He seemed rather proud to say that. Mostly because it means he successfully built his walls so tall and strong that not even he can even shift a brick.

"Ah, but I did crack you a bit, didn't I? Otherwise I wouldn't be here." She was pretty intuitive, and extremely empathic. She could feel every ounce of the pain he's in, be it mental or emotional. She knew from the get-go that he was overly cautious around others, even if he knew them well enough. "You're lost..." she intoned.

His eyes narrowed. "Sorry?"

"There's no filter in your brain that says, ' _Go with this instinct, not that one_.' Really the only instinct you _do_ listen to is the one that tells you to run, don't you?"

His upper lip somewhat twitched. She really hit the head of the nail.

"You've had some hard times, to say the least. Your past haunts you. You've been so convinced that what they've all said and done was right."

He could feel a tightness in his throat; hologrammatic tears began to form behind his eyelids. He turned away so she couldn't see him cry. He could have just as easily walked away but he felt like he couldn't move. Something compelled him to stay in the room. Rimmer sniffled a bit.

"But you know what? It's over." she said. "All of it. True, you can't change what's been done, unfortunately, but you're here. Right now. You've made it through. You're stronger than you think." She half smiled, wishing he'd turn around. "Arnold, I've seen you. The you that's been buried alive, incased in bricks and mortar. The small glimpse I've seen of him I can tell you... he is a remarkable man. He just needs to be released." Still no response from him, except a sigh. "I'm proud of you."

Those four words made him start to sob. No one ever told him that before. Not even the two people who, by nature, are supposed to say that: His parents.

She stood up, and walked over to be at his side. He turned away again. She was able to see a few tears hit the floor. "That's what you've been wanting to hear, isn't it?" Another sniffle was the only response. "I suspect there's one other thing you've been wanting, too." she added.

She got closer to him. Despite the fact that he was turned the other way, she outstretched her arms and enfolded him in them, giving Rimmer a backwards hug. The sobbing started again. Eventually he turned around, burying his head into her neck and shoulder. He wasn't sure what came over him. She was a complete stranger, yet here he was, bawling into her arms.

Her hands shifted from the middle to his upper back, rubbing it gently. She said she was proud of him repetitively, and each time it seemed like he was crying harder. It got to a point where she stopped talking altogether and gently shushed him, all the while still rubbing his back.

He didn't want to let go. On the other hand he didn't want his fellow shipmates seeing him like this. He couldn't tell why he was crying anymore — if it was because someone was being nice to him for once, or because of hearing the words he so longed for. Whatever the case, he seemed to be calming down.

He knew he couldn't stay this way forever, so he slowly pulled away from her embrace. He couldn't breathe through his nose anymore. He still wasn't done bawling his eyes out. Not by a long shot. Still, he pushed it down for the time being. It wasn't the best, healthiest thing for him but what else could he do?

He sniffed harder this time, trying to get some air into him. "I should... probably go." Even though he didn't want to.

"Or you could stay. Vent." she insisted.

He did enough venting for one day, even if he didn't say anything. "No, no. I need to— Someone has to..." He twisted his face, trying to think of some excuse Nothing came to mind. "Recalculate the..." He made a rotating gesture with his hands. "in the..." He pointed behind him.

"Okay..." she said, half smiling at him.

He awkwardly smiled back, walked out of the room, and in less than five seconds turned around and came right back in. "I don't deserve that." Rimmer said. Assuming that was an attempt to vent, Aria just listened to what he had to say. "I never do anything for others to be proud of. Maybe some other version of me, like... Ace." He bared a grimace. "I _hated_ that gimboid. Correction: I _loathed_ him."

Ironically, he _was_ Ace for a long time. Ultimately every version of Rimmer became him at some point. Rimmer grew tired pretending to be something he truly wasn't. It was a life he wasn't meant for. He left that life behind and came back to Red Dwarf just as it was being attacked by a highly corrosive micro-organism. Shocked by the state of the ship, and from seeing his own dead body, he started to panic. He tried to steady himself and accidentally grabbed onto a lever, which detached the middle half of Red Dwarf. By some stroke of luck, the middle happened to be the area affected by the micro-organisms. He panicked even more when he found he'd have to somehow lock the front part onto the end part of the ship. He could barely handle Wildfire let alone Red Dwarf. In the end he did it: He saved his friends by a fluke, but Rimmer would deny it ever being a fluke. Mainly to make himself sound better, and boost up his own self esteem.

"I think what I loathed more was that Ace was something I could never be. No matter how hard I tried." Rimmer mused.

Aria hesitated to smile at him. "Well, everyone has their own calling, I guess."

Rimmer began to get worked up a bit. "But I always thought I was destined for greatness! I felt it with every fibre of my being. I thought I'd be a captain — a general. Something other than," He spread his arms out wide. "This!"

"You?" Aria chortled. Rimmer had a blank, yet slightly insulted expression on his face. "Look, Arn..." She put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him in closer. "Do you really, honestly, without a doubt know for a fact... that if you were someone like that; leading men into battle, under fire you'd be able to handle it without that one instinct kicking in?"

He stood there, deep in thought, rubbing his chin. Truthfully if he had to think about it, the answer had to be no. He inhaled sharply; his eyes diverted from the wall to her.

Aria's look begged for an answer. "I'll take it that's a 'no'." She sat back down on her bed. "It's not to say that you're not brave..." She looked him over. "in your own way. I just think that if you were meant to be someone like that, it would have happened already." She held out her arms. " _This_ isn't great? You're in space! Doing... space things!"

He gave a so-so gesture. "It just gets a bit samey after a while."

She shook her head, and got up once more. "Clearly you and I have led different lives." She made her way to the window. Outside the ship were a few galaxies in the far distance. Billions of stars shone bright in the blackness of space. She saw more stars than she ever imagined. After everything she had seen before, most of which still haunted her, floating in space on a course to nowhere was like a vacation to her. "This… This is... beyond great."

Kryten knocked on the door frame. "Sir?"

Rimmer glanced back at him then at Aria. "What is it?"

"Mr. Lister needs you for something, sir."

Extensively, he rolled his eyes. "Honestly, that clown would seriously be lost without me." he griped.

Aria still stared out the window, both lost and fascinated by the view. Just as Rimmer was about to ask if she was alright, she told him, "Go." She didn't even look away.

He left to go down to the drive room, briefly looking back at her, wondering if she was alright. She seemed lonely to him. "You sure?" Rimmer asked.

She finally looked at him. "Yeah." she replied. "I'll probably just nap, or something." She sauntered over to her bunk and flopped down. She was dead tired.

Rimmer was hesitant to leave but he did reluctantly. He and Kryten talked on the way to the drive room. "Did you find out anything?" he asked Kryten. Earlier Rimmer had him get as much information as he could on Aria.

"I've look meticulously, sir. She doesn't seem to exist." Kryten replied.

Rimmer stopped walking, but Kryten kept going. He grabbed Kryten's forearm, forcing him to stop. "What do you mean she doesn't exist?" Rimmer asked.

"There is no Aria Harkness in my database, sir."

"Well... check again! There has to be something." Rimmer said. "Look harder. That's an order."

"Oh, please, sir! Don't order me to help you. You know how much I hate helping you!" Kryten griped. Rimmer had his usual glare plastered on his face. Kryten sighed. "Very well, sir."


	4. Three Million Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every chapter from this one on are my personal favourites. They get a bit longer after this as well, which I apologise for. There's just so much going on in them that I couldn't find a place to cut it that wouldn't ruin the flow.

"You summoned for me?" Rimmer asked in a failed attempt to be funny. It was funny, but in an odd, yet usual smeg-headed Rimmer way.

"What?" Lister chortled. He whipped his head around to look at him. He noticed his eyes were red and swollen. "You alright?"

His upper lip twitched as he grew anxious, then donned a blank expression and denied it all. "What do you mean?"

"Your eyes are bloodshot..." Rimmer opened his mouth, about to give a false explanation but he cut him off. "And now that you're talking, you actually sound stuffed up."

Rimmer's eyes widened; he hoped that Lister would be his usual daft self and not come to any conclusions.

"Have you got some sort of holo-cold?" Lister asked.

Rimmer let out a giant sigh of relief. Lister's obliviousness and stupidity came through once again. Either that or he was joking. Then he remembered he had to answer his question. "I have... allergies."

Lister wasn't buying it. Incredulously, he asked, "Allergies? From what?"

He scrunched up his face, deep in thought. "Aria!" he exclaimed as he snapped his fingers, pointing at Lister.

"You're allergic to Aria? How?"

He started pacing around. "Oh, what are you asking me for?" he hastened to ask. "All I know is that I was fine before, now she's here and I'm not fine." he squeaked.

"Wait, you were fine before?" he jested.

Rimmer glared at him as he usually did. "Ha-ha. Hi-smegging-larious. Now, what did you want me for?"

"I've been thinking—"

Rimmer interrupted, "Oh no."

Lister stared at him, blinking a couple of times.

"What? I can't make jokes about your intelligence? Or lack thereof?"

He shook his head. "As I was sayin': Why are we still mucking around, looking for food? Aria has that..." He snapped his fingers, trying to remember what it was called. "vortex thing. Why not use that to go to some time period where food was plentiful, grab some grub and come back here with it?"

"Hang on. Did you just use the word 'plentiful'? Correctly?"

"Rimmer, I'm being serious."

"So am I!" he exclaimed. He playfully punched Lister in his bicep. "Someone's been using their word-a-day calendar, haven't they?"

Lister just stared blankly at him. "C'mon, man…"

Rimmer went back to being serious. "I know you're worried, we all are. But I'm sure there's a better way to go about it."

"Like?" he asked.

Rimmer pursed his lips as he thought of one. He knew Lister was tired of mooching off of others. Then he got an idea. "You could actually... work."

" _Work_?" Lister disdainfully asked.

"Yes, work. W-O-R-K." He was being needlessly sarcastic. "Listy, we've been though this. It's in the dictionary. Look it up."

He dismissed his insult. "Where are we gonna find work out here? There's nothing."

Rimmer shrugged. "I'm sure there's some salvage jobs out there..."

"Yeah, okay." He sighed. "Guess I'll start looking. You should too."

He looked dumbfounded by that notion. " _Me_?!"

Lister nodded in response.

"Alright, fine!" Rimmer griped. "But if I wind up a soup vendor technician again, kindly shut me down."

"Deal!" Lister acted like he was all too ready to do so, but deep down he can't live without him. Picking on him was his way of saying he loved him, even though it never came across that way.

* * *

Rimmer left to go to his quarters. As he exited the drive room he could hear Aria humming. She was close by but he couldn't see her.

She exclaimed, "Hello, Arnold!"

He looked around the area for her. She was nowhere to be found. Perplexed, he kept whipping around, trying to find her, almost making himself dizzy in the process. Eventually he looked up and saw her hanging upside down from the rafter. He jumped back a bit, nearly tumbling back into the drive room. She gave him a friendly wave.

"How on Io did you get up there?!"

She twirled 'round the rafter, and landed feet first onto the ground, just feet away from him. "I climbed, of course."

He stood in a heap of confusion, arching one eyebrow. She definitely was an odd one. She began walking away, and he hurried after her.

"Aria, I know you just got here, but we're sort of struggling. I was wondering if you'd apply for a job with the rest of us? It would help us out."

They both stopped walking, and stared at each other. He folded his arms, waiting for an answer.

"You mean you're not paying me?" she jokingly asked. Her joke went over his head.

He held his arms out as if to say, "Look at us! Look at the ship! Do we look rich?!" They weren't exactly rolling in dough.

"I was kidding, Holo-Man." She shook her head and started to leave again.

He thought "Holo-Man" was a strange nickname for him. "Wait up!" he shouted out to her. He ran to catch up with her.

"By the way, you have a lot of weird stuff in your room." she blurted out.

The juxtaposition of their conversation had Rimmer reeling a bit. He looked indignantly at her. "You've been in my room?"

She didn't answer him. "What's the penguin puppet about, then? And that hollowed out book with your diary in it..."

His mouth was agape. He was nearly at a loss for words. "You didn't!"

"No!" she drawled. "Like I would bother with that." She scoffed at the very thought of reading his personal thoughts. She knew her boundaries.

As they strolled down the corridor she found herself staring at him again. He was looking down at the ground and didn't notice. He would have made her stop otherwise.

"You okay?" she asked.

"I'm fine. Why?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Earlier on you were pretty... well, distraught."

He half smiled and said, "About that: I hope you don't feel obligated to have pity on me."

She pursed her lips, and shook her head. "Not at all," They stopped walking, and she placed her hand upon his shoulder. "but for what it's worth..."

Rimmer looked at her hand, then at her, somewhat horrified. He wasn’t scared of her, he was scared of what might happen next if that hand stayed there any longer than it needed to.

Aria yanked it away. She continued, "If you ever feel like no one cares, just know that I do."

He didn't know how to respond to that. She had been so kind to him. It wasn't something that he was used to. "Th- Thank you." he sheepishly said, and grudgingly smiled at her again.

She smiled back, and was about to leave when she remembered something. "Oh! I've been meaning to show you..."

He awaited for what she was about to show him. She began doing the hated-by-many Rimmer salute. The long one reserved for special people. As she waved her arm up, down and about, he watched her, beaming.

Lister came out of the drive room, and went down the hall to see what was going on. Aria was still doing the salute.

"Oh, smeg, there's two of them." Lister griped.

She finally finished the ridiculously long salute. "Sir!" She grimaced, feeling odd for calling him that. "Arnold..." It still felt wrong. "D'you know what? I'll just call you Rimmer like everyone else."

Rimmer gave a quick, affirming nod.

She saluted again - a quicker one, and she strutted off.

Rimmer stood with a smug look on his face. He felt good for imparting some knowledge on to someone else, useless as it was. He finally noticed Lister standing next to him. "There's something about her, Listy. Something I like." he said as he watched her leave.

"Yeah, she's turning into you!" he retorted.

Rimmer found himself staring at her rear end, tilting his head, and contemplating the tightness of her nether region. He couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like having her naked body against his, sweating, panting and writhing in pure ecstasy.

Lister gave him a once over, and knew almost instantly what that "something" was. "You fancy her, don't ya?"

He immediately stopped watching her. "Her?! No!" He shuddered with a look of disdain upon his face. "Firstly, she's much younger than I am. By a lot. Secondly, she and I are polar opposites!" It wasn't true. He saw a lot of himself in her, as did she. "It wouldn't work." While he was lying when he said he didn't like her, he knew that it truly wouldn't work. He felt no one could ever love him.

Lister could tell a crush when he saw one, and he knew he had it bad. "Sure, Rimmsy. Sure." he said as he patted him on the back.

* * *

Aria was in the room where the crew files were located. The only people on file, who were actual crew members, were Lister and Rimmer. Naturally, she looked at Rimmer's file first. That included everything the hologram version had done to date. She knew a lot about him already, but some things were harder to get just by looking. After skimming through what she had already ascertained about his personality, she came upon an unsettling discovery. She read about the radiation leak that Rimmer inadvertently caused in twenty-one thousand, eighty-one, one which killed everyone on board except for Lister, who was in stasis at the time. That, in of itself, didn't bother her as much as the next thing she read: It happened three million years ago.

She left to go find Lister or Rimmer to talk to about this. As she roamed the halls, she ran into the smeg-head himself. He was standing at the end of one of the side corridors.

"Rimmer!" she shouted. She walked over and saw that down the way was Cat and Kryten, looking on the ground for something. "What is going on here?" she asked.

"The Cat saw a weevil." he exasperated. "So we're looking for it." He'd much rather be doing something more useful than stand around, waiting. All because Cat had what Rimmer thought to be an episode of over imagination and was seeing things.

She furrowed her brow. "It'd be pretty hard to lose a weevil, wouldn't it?" Then Kryten pulled out the weevil; it was a completely different weevil than what she was thinking of. "Oh... _those_ weevils..." she drawled.

"There's other kinds of weevil?" Rimmer asked.

Aria shrugged, figuring it was best to keep her mouth shut about that.

Rimmer grimaced as Kryten walked by them with the weevil in the palm of his hands. "Did you need something?" Rimmer asked her.

She had almost forgotten what she came over for. "I... I need to talk to you."

"You are talking to me." he sarcastically said.

She blankly stared at him.

"My God, have you forgotten?" He then started talking slowly and clearly so she could understand him. "Aria, it's me. Arnold Rimmer."

She glared. If she knew she wouldn't hurt herself, she'd deck him right then and there, but he was in hard-light mode. The punch would hurt her more than it would him. "Never mind!" she drawled. "Where's Lister?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Don't know."

Aria stormed off in a huff, in search of Lister. Kryten probably would've given her a better answer but he was busy dealing with the space weevil.

"Aria, wait." Rimmer exhorted.

She stopped and turned around. "Yes?"

"What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Don't you think _not_ telling me that I'm currently in deep space, three million and some odd years into the future was a _bit_ of an oversight?" she indignantly asked.

"Ah, yes. That little tidbit of information." he mumbled.

Aria glared once more.

"Sorry." He cleared his throat. "You're currently in deep space, three million and some odd years into the future."

She became more angry with every word he spoke.

"Why are you so cross with me? I did tell you."

"Only just now." she huffed.

He dismissively shrugged. "Better late than never, Aria." He and Aria began walking off in an undetermined direction. "How _did_ you find out, anyway?"

"I was looking through the computer logs and files, and—"

"You and snooping, honestly!" he griped.

"I only ' _snooped_ ' because no one's telling me anything!" To be fair, however, she never did ask. It never truly occurred to her to ask. "Besides, who am I hurting by looking?"

"It's common courtesy to not be nosy!" he exclaimed. " _And_ you violated Space Corps. directive eight-six-seven..." He said it like she was supposed to know what he was talking about.

Aria extensively rolled her eyes. Luckily, she read through the directives as well while she was in the computer room. "'No persons on board should have sex if the ship is at full capacity, due to the risk of pregnancy'?"

He felt so small and embarrassed, because while she had only been on the ship for three and a half hours, she already knew more than he did. Most of what he learned took months to figure out, and even then it was questionable whether or not he actually knew anything.

She corrected him. "I think you mean directive five-nine-six."

He glowered. "You think you're smart, don't you?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Even so, there's no acting captain on board, is there?" she smugly asked. Rimmer opened his mouth, about to say something but Aria cut him off. "And before you decide to pull rank, you might want to take into consideration that rank means _nothing_ out here in deep space."

He just stared with an arched eyebrow. He tried to think of a comeback but for once he had nothing. Every time he felt like he thought of something, no words would come out.

She waited for him to say something - anything, and eventually gave up. Sharply, she inhaled. "Right. I'm going to Lister, seeing as how you're _no_ help whatsoever." she said as she began to walk away.

"Not so fast." Rimmer hastened to say. "You did violate a directive, remember?"

She stopped and turned around. "Oh, come on!" She put her hands on her hips. "You can't be serious. I'm not even part of JMC!"

He nodded, and pointed at her. "Technically, you are now." He whipped out a pen and paper and started writing. "You're on report, milassie."

While he was writing it, she slapped the notebook out of his hands. They glared at each other. He bent over to pick it up. It took every ounce of mental strength she had not to push him to the floor, just for the sake of doing it. He truly made her cross.

He wrote up another report for being rude to a superior. He grinned. "I can do this all day."

"Yeah, well, I can't." She turned and stormed off.

He wanted to stop her again and apologise. At least ask her if she was angry with him, although it was clear she was. He wrote a few measly reports and somehow he felt guilty for it, even though she was the one with the attitude. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he walked off, debating if Lister was right. Was this affection? He hadn't felt it in so long, he forgot what it was like. Assuming he ever felt it at all.

* * *

"Clearly, she's from Earth." Rimmer said, pacing the floors of his and Lister's sleeping quarters. "Clearly, she knows more than she lets on."

Lister was sitting at the table, practically falling asleep from boredom listing to Rimmer pondering the implications of Aria's existence. "How do you figure?" he sleepily asked.

"She knew I was a hologram, even before I let her on the ship."

"So?"

"So unless she had been here before, how would she know?"

Lister shrugged. "Okay, so she knows stuff that most outsiders wouldn't. Who smeggin' cares? She's a human being! Which means I might not be the last person alive."

It was all the more reason to get back to Earth. If she lived then others probably made it as well.

Kryten waddled in with the info Rimmer asked for in hand. "Here you are, sir. It's all the information I could gather. I should warn you, it is a bit long."

It was a stack of pages thicker than Steven King's _The Mist_. Kryten placed them on the table.

"How did you find out so much, Krytes, if she didn't exist?" Lister asked.

"I simply honoured the age old tradition that has been practised by man for ages, sir."

"Which is?" Rimmer wondered.

"I asked her questions." Kryten replied.

Rimmer was back stabbed again by his sneaky side. If only he thought about how to go about it more thoroughly, he probably could have avoided that bit of embarrassment.

"Well, I could've done that!" he snipped. He picked up the pages and began reading the info aloud. "'Born in nineteen-eighty-nine, Earth. Age: late twenties, early thirties'…" He stopped there. "Granted I'm not too well versed in math, but wouldn't that make her over two million years old?"

"She doesn't look bad for being two million years old." Lister said.

"Don't forget: She has a device capable of time travel. She can go anywhere, past or present, and not age a day." Kryten reminded them.

Rimmer didn't know why he thought getting information on her would help. The stress made his hologrammatic stomach flop like someone dropped him from fifty floors up. He was getting increasingly worse, and Lister was taking notice.

"You alright, man?" Lister asked. He got no response.

Rimmer couldn't tell if this was anxiety or fury; he had no reason to feel either way. His breath quickened until he got to the point of hyperventilation. It was now a matter of worrying about why he suddenly became a nervous, angry wreck. He found himself gripping the wall, trying to steady himself. Kryten tried offering him his Chinese worry balls but Rimmer just knocked them out of his hand.

Then Cat came strutting in. Something in Rimmer's head snapped in that moment. Before Cat could even say, "Hey, buds." Rimmer lunged at him, pinning him to the wall by his throat.

"Whoa! What the hell?!" Lister shot out of his seat and struggled to pry Rimmer off of Cat. "Rimmer, man, knock it off! Snap out of it!"

Just as quickly as his violent outburst came on, it ended. When it registered in his mind that he was killing Cat he let go, and backed away. Even he was shocked by his actions.

"What got into you?" Lister asked.

Rimmer's lips quivered in fear. _"What did get into me?"_ he wondered. He didn't like any of his crew mates, but he certainly didn't want to kill any of them. He looked around at everyone; they were just as scared and confused as he was. He whimpered, "I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"

"Are you alright, sir?" Kryten asked.

Lister was more than a little upset that he wasn't concerned about Cat and his well-being. "Is _he_ alright?! Cat nearly got the life choked out of him and you're worried about Smeg for Brains over there?!"

"Man, he ruined my best suit!" Cat whined. "Don't you know this kind of fabric doesn't bounce back?!" he asked Rimmer.

Lister rolled his eyes. "On the other hand, he's probably fine."

Rimmer didn't know what to say except that he was sorry. He chanted it like a mantra until it got to the point where the word had lost all meaning. He backed up until he landed in his bunk, then curled up into a ball and cradled himself in bed.

" _Are_ you alright?" Lister asked Rimmer.

In between the quickening breaths he replied, "Leave... me... alone."

Lister shrugged his shoulders. "Suit yourself." He gestured to the others. "Let's go."

Rimmer was left alone, as per request. It wasn't that he didn't want the company, he just didn't want to hurt anyone else. He was terrified.The only other time he'd act completely scared and helpless like this was when danger was about. This time the danger was himself, and there was no escaping from it. How can you run away from yourself?


	5. Hard-Light Whacko

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit long, but again I couldn't find where to cut it without ruining it. 
> 
> Fun fact: This was actually the first bit I wrote of this fanfic.

Aria barged into Lister and Rimmer's room, where Rimmer was sitting quietly at the table, tinkering with equipment of some sort. Anything to keep from feeling any emotion whatsoever.

Aria felt equally as terrible for the way she acted. She couldn't think about anything else except for Rimmer and his stupid ferrety face. "Okay, I've been dwelling over it for a while now. I know I screwed up..." she blurted out. "Although I can't understand how." She stopped long enough to see the peeved look on Rimmer's face. "Tell me what I need to do, because I honestly don't like us being this way."

He looked perplexed by what he assumed was an apology, and by the fact that she implied they had a relationship of some sort. "Us? I didn't know there was an 'us'."

"Well, yeah." she chortled. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you and I were a couple."

His eyes widened. He didn't realise she was only kidding around. " _When did we become a couple?_ " he thought to himself.

She folded her arms. "I'm trying to make you laugh, you goit!"

"Goit?!" he asked, incredulously. He thought he was the only one who knew that term. Though, it wasn't the worst thing he had been called. Mr. Gazpacho still holds first place. Not knowing what else to do, he too resorted to name calling. "You're the... goit!" he retorted, childishly.

She chided, "Oi, watch it Holo-Man!"

He never wanted to insult a woman more in his life. "Oi, watch it Earth-Girl!"

She gasped. "Don't you 'smeg' talk me, mister!" She didn't know what smeg was but she knew it must've been some sort of swear word.

" _Me?!_ _You_ started the smeg talking!"

"Oh real mature, you narcissistic, neurotic gimboid!" She shoved him, nearly knocking him out of his seat.

" _Neurotic?!_ " That was the one term he chose to focus on. He got up, looking determined to win this fight, and he shoved her back.

The two dysfunctional "love-birds" started yelling - screaming over each other. None of them could get a word in edgewise. It was a first: Rimmer had finally met his match. The problem was they were equally stubborn. Neither one of them were about to let the other win. Eventually they resorted to making faces. Rimmer had the upper hand, since his face seemed to be made of rubber and contorted in many ways her's couldn't.

Realising that her facial structure was no match, she began to imitate him. "Ooh, look at me! I'm Arnold Judas Rimmer," She drawled on every syllable of his name. "Alexander the Great's chief eunuch! Anything to hide how much of a _useless, cowardly twat I am!_ "

He stopped making faces, and appeared terribly hurt. That one stabbed him right in his pride, what little of it he had left. He was just starting to trust her, his walls were beginning to crumble, then she had to go and break his heart. He was at a loss for words; he stood there in the middle of the room, dejected.

She felt bad for saying it. He just got on her nerves and it slipped out. Like Rimmer, she had no filter between her brain and her mouth sometimes. "Oh, God, I'm sorry." she gasped.

Rimmer wasn't looking at her anymore. He refused to.

"Rimmer, come on." she begged, hoping he'd at least acknowledge her apology somehow. Maybe with a nod. He seemed to be in a disassociated state. It was either that or he was giving her the cold shoulder. She tilted her head, curious to know what was going on. " _Did he shut down or something?_ " she wondered.

Then he began wheezing and hyperventilating. Sadness had quickly become anxiety. It was a stress induced mental breakdown, all because of what she said. He spent years trying to get his anxiety down after Kryten said it could essentially kill him. Everything he was starting to forget, which only happened because of her kindness, came flooding back to him all at once.

"Rimmer?" she quavered. "What's wrong?"

He flopped down on his bunk, still wheezing and clutching his chest. He thought his hologrammatic heart might explode at any second. Aria tried her best to calm him down. She knelt down in front of him.

"Arnold, relax. I'm sorry. I didn't mean it."

He was still hyperventilating and shaking profusely. It was getting harder for him to stay conscious. All this quick breathing would surely cause him to pass out.

She gently slapped his face on both sides to keep him awake. "Calm down. You'll kill yourself if you keep this up." she said.

At this point Rimmer didn't care. He figured it'd do everyone a favour if he did, if he was the failure everyone depicted him to be.

She stood up. "I'm going to the medi-bay, alright? Just... stay there."

She rushed off to the medical bay, in search of something to calm him. Maybe even sedate him. She rummaged through the drawers and counters for something. Anything. Finally she found a vial of an anti-anxiety medication meant for holograms.

"Diazepam. This'll do." she said to herself.

She arrived back just in time to see Rimmer standing in the middle of the room again. His back was turned to her. Something must have happened while she was gone. He didn't seem well. She couldn't tell what it was about him that was "off" but she knew first hand that anxiety attacks don't fade that quickly.

She arched an eyebrow. "Rimmer? Are you alright?" He was freaking her out. He was in that disassociated state again, only more deeper. She slowly walked up to him, filling the syringe with diazepam. "It's okay. Talk to me. Tell me what's wrong." Aria softly said.

Rimmer stayed in the same place, arms folded across his chest. His body was shaking and he was unresponsive. Just as Aria was about to place a hand on his shoulder he grabbed her wrist without even looking, squeezing it hard. She could hear the bones being crushed. There was no other option but to scream in agony.

With her one, good free hand she jammed the needle in his neck. It was hard enough to penetrate his hard-light projection. He groaned; he tried to get her to stop. By the time he had a slight grip on her other wrist she was done, and he was out. Originally she was going to give him half, but this dose was big enough to knock him unconscious instantly.

He gradually loosened his grip on her as he fell to the floor. She let out a pained gasp. Finally, she could have her wrist back. She moved her fingers and twisted her wrist around to check if it was broken. Surely it was going to leave a bruise at least. She looked down at him, wondering what brought that on.

"Fucking hell!" Her exclamation echoed throughout the empty room.

Now she had to figure out what to do with him: Leave him on the floor or get him in bed somehow. She wasn't the strongest person, and he looked like he weighed at least 86 kilos, maybe more. She couldn't just leave him either. She squatted down, and slid her arms under his.

Lister came rushing in after he heard the screaming. He looked down and noticed Aria struggling to pick him up. "What happened?"

"I dunno. I came in to apologise for something I did earlier, then the next thing I knew we're arguing… He grabbed my wrist, and I sedated him." she told him.

That didn't sound at all normal to him. "Are you hurt?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Nothing's broken." The two of them look at Rimmer once more. "Help me get him to medical."

She locked her arms under Rimmer's while Lister picked him up by the ankles, as best as he could. "God, he's a heavy bastard!" Aria griped. Most of the problem was that he was dead weight.

"You'd think he wouldn't be. He's just hot air!" he joked. They tried lifting him again. "Lift with your knees." It was no use. They laid him back down, and Lister left to get Kryten to help them.

Eventually they got him to the medi-bay for analysis and recovery. Kryten ran a few tests. They'd have to wait for the results to come back, which evidently could take hours.

* * *

An hour passed by. Rimmer was still unconscious. Aria tightly held a couple of his fingers. Because his hands were much bigger than hers, a few fingers were all she could comfortably hold. Once in a while he'd twitch, like he was dreaming. As much as his voice and overall attitude annoyed her, she truly wanted him to wake up. For now she would have to settle for silence.

"Is he still out?" Kryten asked.

Aria nodded, never taking her eyes off of Rimmer. "Yeah..."

"How much holo-medication did you give him?"

Indignantly, she stared at Kryten. "I don't know. I was too busy fearing for my life to notice." she retorted.

He dismissed her sarcastic comment entirely. "I just wish I knew what caused this. Mr. Rimmer isn't a violent person at all."

Suddenly, Rimmer's eyes shot open. Aria quickly glanced over at him. She didn't think much of it until it sunk in, and she realised he was awake.

"Hey..." she chortled.

"Ah, sir! How are you feeling?" Kryten asked.

Rimmer didn't answer him; he just spaced out, staring at the ceiling.

"Mr. Rimmer?"

Aria backed away to stand next to Kryten. She felt uneasy. She knew something bad was about to happen, she just didn't know what or to whom.

He turned his head to look at Kryten. He smirked, and before anyone could stop him, he yanked the metal bed rail off, stabbing Kryten in the lower abdomen.

Kryten wasn't sure how to respond; he just stared at the pole sticking out of him.

Rimmer got out of bed; he was after Aria next. She backed away, then grabbed a scalpel for a weapon. She held it in front of her but it didn't stop him. She backed up so far that she was against the glass walls. Rimmer was right in her face. Any closer he'd be up against her. She could feel his oddly warm breath on her skin. She barely got a chance to cry out for help before he covered her mouth.

He shushed her. "Don't be afraid of me."

In the menacing way he said it, it gave her every right to be afraid. He wasn't Rimmer anymore, he was something else entirely different. Something evil. Quickly and without hesitation he put both of his hands on her skull, squeezing it. An intense pressure wrapped around her head caused her to believe that this was the end. Her breathing quickened. She winced, anticipating her demise.

Rimmer's whole body twitched erratically. Parts of his face contorted slightly. A high pitched, computer like sound emitted from him. Just like that he seemed to revert back to normal. She opened one eye to see what was happening. He stood in front of her, wondering what he was doing up and about.

Rimmer stared at Aria in shock. He had an inkling as to what he was doing, and he couldn't believe it. It happened again. "I'm sorry, I— I don't feel too well." Rimmer made his way back to bed. He noticed the bed rail sticking out of Kryten. He scrunched up his face. "My God, what happened to you?" He pointed at the rail. "You should get that taken care of."

Aria and Kryten looked at each other, confused and scared to death.

Aria nervously laughed. "You just... stay put." she said to Rimmer. "Kryten and I will be back."

As soon as his head hit the head rest, he had fallen back to sleep.

* * *

The rest of the crew gathered in the Lister and Rimmer's sleeping quarters to discuss what had happened. There wasn't much to tell. Kryten couldn't figure out what was wrong with him.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Lister asked Aria.

Her only response at first was a nod. She was shaken up but came out of it unscathed. Aria mused, "This is my fault... I pushed him."

"No, it's not." Lister assured her. "Look, maybe it's his time of the month or something." he jested. 

"Whatever it is, it can't be just Goalpost Head being Goalpost Head. Something ain't right." Cat said.

Kryten told them, "I think he has some sort of new, unknown holo-virus."

"It's not a holo-virus. Well, it is sort of but not really." Aria stated.

"What is it, then?" Lister asked.

"It's called Rampancy. Normally it only affects A.I.s, but there's no reason for it to not affect holograms. It's a result of an uncontrolled expansion of the programming when there's no room _to_ expand. It causes bursts of mood changes like he had earlier." The term "mood changes" was putting it mildly. He had a full blown, rage filled psychotic fit. She could see how lost Lister and Cat were, so she put it in terms they could understand. "Basically he's at max capacity and he's lost most, if not all control of his actions and emotions."

"But how are you at fault, ma'am?" Kryten asked.

"Look, this might've happened regardless of whether or not I came here." Rampancy could be self induced, either by PTSD or severe depression. Both of which Rimmer exhibited. Another cause could be how long he's been an active hologram for. "Given how much I irritate him - not to mention our argument - obviously, I'm enough to send him over the edge. Ergo I'm part of the cause."

Lister sighed. "So what'll happen next?" He wasn't entirely sure if he wanted to know the answer.

Rampancy had three stages; Melancholia, the least noticeable stage where the AI would grow depressed about its limited state of existence, Anger, where the AI would lash out at those who oppressed it - in Rimmer's case, he'd lash out at all those who belittled and hurt him - and Jealousy, where the AI would attempt to take over larger systems in order to make itself more powerful. Rimmer was already in the Anger stage.

"There's a good chance he'll kill every single one of us simply to prove how powerful he can be," Aria told them. "Once he's alone he'll quickly deteriorate even further. He could destroy galaxies just out of sheer boredom."

Lister's stomach sank like a lead weight in the ocean. Rimmer had damaged Kryten and hurt Aria - he nearly killed her. He was well on his way to becoming a mass murderer. They couldn't understand it. He was fine earlier, being his usual Rimmery self; whining, doing revisions, whining some more, and bossing people around.

"Okay, so we find a way to fix this." Lister said.

"There's no cure, Lister. There are a few options that can ease it; one is theoretical, the other two are not all that promising, either."

"What are they?"

"One: We shut him down."

Cat interjected, "That's an option? I'm in!"

"Cat, please..." Lister exhorted. He drew his attention back to Aria. "You were saying."

"The shut down would have to be permanent. I know you have his memory and all that on file, you could just load a new version but I think with Rimmer, Rampancy is inevitable, given all that he's been through."

"And the second option?" Kryten wondered.

Aria paused a moment before answering. She twisted her mouth. Eventually she simply said, "Bend over." And she walked out of the room, heading for the medi-bay to check on Rimmer.

For a moment she had them puzzled. They didn't consider she meant bending over and kissing their bums goodbye. Lister hurried after Aria, then the others followed suit.

"What about the other one? The theoretical one?" Lister asked her.

"It's a matter of source elimination. If we do that, it could possibly stave it off, but it's a long shot." she replied.

"Can we eliminate him?" Cat asked, grinning from cheek to cheek.

Aria stopped walking and so did the others. "That's a very fine idea, Cat, but the adults are talking." She made a "locking lips shut and throwing away the key" gesture.

"What _can_ we eliminate when everything we say or do causes him to flip out to begin with?" Lister asked.

"Me. I'm expendable. There's no reason any of you should leave or give anything up, and I did partially bring it on. It's only fair that I leave." Aria said.

Before any one could reject the notion of her leaving they all heard a crash further down the corridor. It sounded like glass breaking.

"Now what?" Lister griped.  

* * *

They stood outside the medical bay, watching Rimmer destroy everything. All that he could lift, at least. He crushed a kidney bowl with his bare hands, he threw multiple vials and beakers onto the ground, and he tore their only MRI machine to bits as if it were nothing. Rimmer was completely out of it. Something had taken a hold of him.

Lister looked at Aria. "It just keeps getting better and better." he muttered sarcastically.

Quietly, he entered the room, so he wouldn't cause Rimmer to lash out. Everyone else followed behind him.

Even though they were quiet, Rimmer could still hear them. He perked up, and whipped around to see them all standing in various spots of the room. Naturally, his eyes went straight to Lister. By that time he was acting like his usual, smeg-headed self again.

"Ah, Lister. I haven't seen you for a few hours. Been too busy slob—" Suddenly, his light bee started glitching out, causing his projection to cut in and out, and making a high pitched noise. "Do you know what that condescending _bitch_ once said to me?!" His voice sounded distorted.

"Rimmer?" Lister was getting immensely nervous.

Rimmer continued on with his weird rant. "Even _I_ don't call him by name anymore."

Slowly and cautiously, Lister got a little closer to him. "Rimmer, what are you on about?"

"Yes, well he also said he works better alone!" Rimmer didn't seem to be talking to anyone specific, like it was a one sided conversation. "I can't understand why you chose me, Holly."

Holly, the ship's computer, wasn't online anymore and hadn't been on for a long time.

"He _detests_ me! They all do! _I'm sick of it!_ " he screamed. His voice became even more distorted and glitchy, and his projection flickered again, this time emitting electric flares.

The ship's lights and computer monitors flickered; his episode caused a minor power fluctuation.

Rimmer calmed down somewhat. He was growing weary of this feeling. He knew something was wrong and he wanted it to stop. "I should just end it all now." he quavered. His eyes darted in the direction of Aria. "Help me." he begged. Rimmer widened his eyes and blinked a few times while his light bee glitched again. He eventually snapped out of it, and fully acknowledged their presence. He looked confused. "Why are you all here?" When he didn't get an answer, he jumped to the worst conclusion. "You're going to shut me down, aren't you?"

Aria stepped out from behind Kryten, and walked towards him. She gently told him, "Nobody is shutting you down, sweetie." Lister appeared to be disgusted by Aria calling him that. She continued talking Rimmer down. "You're okay. Just try to relax."

He began wandering around the room, picking up random medical utensils, and determining whether or not they'd do any harm to himself. He would do anything to stop his erratic emotions. "But you're right to." he said. He stopped moving around, and gave his full attention to Aria. "I've gone utterly insane... Raving mad." Nervous that he'd be shut down, he twiddled part of a surgical retractor in his fingers. The flat part that spread open rib cages.

Everyone felt uneasy; if he wanted to he could shove that into somebody's skull.

"I know the lot of you think I'm crazy."

Lister shook his head. "We don't think that."

Cat bobbed his head, side to side. "Well—"

Lister shushed him before he could finish what he was saying. "Don't piss him off more, Cat." he muttered through his teeth.

Aria subtly moved her hand back towards Kryten, and he handed her a holo-sedative. It was better for the rest of the crew if Rimmer would stay asleep, or at least so drugged up that he wouldn't try killing anyone. Unfortunately she wasn't as subtle as she thought. He saw the needle filled with sedative, and immediately began to panic. This was the Rimmer everyone was used to: The cowardly Rimmer and not the hard-light whacko they saw just a minute ago.

Fear washed over his face. "You lied to me!"

Aria shook her head. "Nothing is going to happen. You'll be fine." Each time she got closer to him, he backed away. "You won't feel a thing, okay?"

"Rimmer directive 271!" he blurted out, hoping his made up directive would stop them.

Lister assured him, "Rimmer, calm down, man."

Aria quickly thought up a plan. "Right. That's it. You've lost your Hammond organ privileges." she scolded.

It was enough to grab his attention. "What?! You can't do that!" Rimmer exclaimed.

"I'm afraid I just did."

"Okay, I'm pulling rank!" he spat.

Lister and Aria both rolled their eyes. For the moment the Rimmer they knew was back, but she still needed to sedate him so she and Kryten could run more tests without being brutally murdered.

She sighed. "Rimmer, I am a twenty-seven year old woman; far too young to be standing around, wasting my life, listening to you and your petty excuses. You're—" She suddenly stopped and looked perplexed. She turned to Lister and said, "He's smiling at me. I'm insulting him and he's smiling at me."

Lister shrugged. "He does that."

"Okay..." she drawled. She shook her head, trying to dislodge the confusion. She told Rimmer, "You have two options: Either you let me do this to you the easy way or the hard way." Her threat was unoriginal but it was all she could think of.

Rimmer incredulously asked Lister, "Are you going to let her talk to me like that?"

"What d'you want me to do?!"

Rimmer was distracted long enough for Aria to grab a hold of him by the collar of his hologrammic uniform. He let out a rather feminine yelp, then screamed as if he were being tortured as he resisted being injected.

"I could use a bit of help here, guys!" she shouted.

Kryten held him still as best as he could. Rimmer thrashed and struggled to get away from his grip. The idea of being shut down terrified him. He was only "alive" because he became a hologram. For all intents and purposes he was long gone already, but if he were to be shut down, he'd truly be gone forever. At least that's what he imagined would happen. He figured no one cared enough to turn him back on.

Eventually he stopped screaming. Quickly thinking of a distraction, he shouted, "What's that behind you?!" and pointed to absolutely nothing.

Aria wasn't falling for it, but Kryten, being the git he was, turned to look behind him, allowing Rimmer to break free pushing Aria down as he high-tailed it out of the medi-bay.

"Should we go after him?" Lister asked.

Unfazed, Aria got up and brushed herself off. She smirked, and handed Lister an empty syringe. While she was on the ground, she was able to stick him in his shin before he took off. "Yeah. _I'm_ the goit." she thought aloud.

She casually walked after Rimmer. He was still running but staggering like he downed a few pints. After a few seconds of futilely trying to flee, he landed face first onto the ground. The sound of his body hitting the deck made a loud thud that echoed throughout the corridor. She knelt down beside him to check if he was completely knocked out. When she found that he was, she waved everyone over to help pick him up for the second time that day


	6. Don't Tell: Don't Leave

Lister walked into the medical bay where Aria sat by an unconscious Rimmer once more. It seemed to be the norm for Rimmer to be completely knocked out for the time being. It was safer that way.

"Hey." Lister whispered softly. "Spacing out, are we?"

Aria perked up a bit, and softly chuckled. While staring at Rimmer she told him, "Kryten said there was no sign of Rampancy before I got here. It's me... He didn't know how or why it's me, but..." She bowed her head. "Just my luck..." she intoned.

Lister stood by her to comfort her. "You didn't know." he said. "There's no way anyone could've figured this would happen. But we'll sort it out."

She let out a sigh. "There's only one way to sort it out..." she said, regrettably.

"Do you really have to go?"

"Lister, the longer I stay, the more he'll deteriorate." She turned to face him. "You thought what happened earlier was bad? He's going to get much, _much_ worse."

"How much worse can he get? He already hurt you and Kryten. He almost killed you."

She tilted her head to the side; she went back to watching Rimmer. "He didn't know what he was doing."

"Well, he does know he's a complete nutter." He pulled up a chair and sat next to her. "He had to have some idea of what he was doing."

She nodded, and sighed. "He just doesn't know why he's doing it..."

"So why not tell him?"

Tears started to fill her eyes. It wasn't as simple as that. How could she tell someone she barely knew, yet cared deeply for that she was slowly, ultimately and unintentionally making him unstable? At this stage there was no telling how he would react. "Were it so easy..."

He grudgingly smiled. "You're in love with him, aren't you?"

Through the sadness she was somehow able to chuckled slightly. "Is it that obvious?"

"A tad." Lister nodded. "I just mean, if you are... you'd care enough to tell him about all of this, right?"

She put on a Sisyphean smile, and wiped away the tears. It didn't matter; she still cried every time she looked at Rimmer. "It's not that easy. I mean, if—" She had a hard time talking; she was too upset. "If he weren't a hologram, he... might be okay, you know?" she quavered. "I swear, everything I come into contact with just..." She bit her lower lip to keep from bursting into tears.

"We'll figure out something." he assured her; he placed a hand on her shoulder. "We have to."

She sniffled, and held Rimmer's hand even tighter. She wasn't going to tell Lister her exact plan. As much as she'd like to let him in on it, she couldn't trust him to not tell Rimmer. He and Lister were close, despite the tiffs they had. She knew Lister would say something to him.

"Here." She handed him a vile of fluid. "Retcon: It's a selective amnesia drug." she told him. "I've created a form of it that will work on him. I thought if he forgot it ever happened it might help."

Lister stared at it a moment, and shoved it in his pocket. "Okay...?"

"When I go, he has to be given that. Any trace of me on this ship has to be removed as well. _Everything_. The smallest thing can trigger this all over again, even if I'm not there. Understood?"

He nodded. "How do I give it to him without him completely freaking out again?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "Tell him it's a vaccination of some sort. He's dumb enough to believe it." She internally cringed; she couldn't believe she just called him dumb.

"Where are you going to go when you leave?"

She purposely ignored the question. It was one of the many tendencies she inherited from her father: Never tell people anything unless it was absolutely necessary. The last thing she wanted was anyone going after her. She did care about everyone on the ship, but that was the problem: She was beginning to care too much.

"So, tell me about Rimmer." she said. "I haven't been able to get a lot out of him."

He sighed as he thought of something. "There's not much to tell."

"No stories or anything?"

There were plenty of stories he could tell. Too many to choose from.

"There was one this one time he went a little nuts with his sex doll, Inflatable Ingrid. He popped her."

She had a look of disgust. "He had one of those things?"

He nodded. "It was a nice funeral, though. I remember what the headstone said: 'Deflated but not forgotten.'."

She couldn't help but snigger. "Okay, that is a good one." she admitted. She was hoping for something more than an anecdote. "But how did he become such a—"

He finished her sentence. "Smegger?"

"I was going to say a self loathing, anxious man child but that works, too."

"I guess his terrible upbringing?" He shrugged. "What do you see in him, anyway?" He had a hard time believing anyone could willingly fall for Rimmer, unless something was mentally wrong with them.

"Hard to say, really." She lightly touched the scar on the right side of his jaw, briefly wondering where he got it from. "Sure, on the outside he's a complete... whatever you just called him. But underneath it all is a sweet, noble, lovable man."

Lister scoffed. He rarely saw that side of him, but he knew just as well as she did that it existed somewhere under that war loving, narcissistic, cowardly exterior. "Do you really think you could go for someone who worships the likes of Napoleon, though?"

She hastened to say, "I can change him."

Rimmer groaned, and slowly opened his eyes. He looked at Aria and Lister with bleary eyes. Gradually as he woke up he tightly gripped her hand, scared by how lost he was. He didn't even know what room he was in at first.

She smiled at him. "Morning, Sleepyhead. How are you?"

He still wasn't talking. Even if he did, what would he say? He felt utterly confused and lost. He didn't know why he was in the medical bay at all. Apart from feeling out of it, he felt fine. Well enough to go about his usual business.

"He's still pretty jiggered." Lister noted. He saw her reach for the drugs to knock him unconscious again. "Do you really need to do that?"

She didn't enjoy doing it, but it was for their own good. Even Rimmer's. He could hurt himself, maybe intentionally. She rolled his sleeve up, baring his forearm.

Rimmer put his hand on her arm to stop her. "Please... don't." It took every bit of energy he had just to say those two words.

She thought about it a while. There wasn't anything else they could do. She considered restraints, but if he became unstable again, it surely wouldn't hold him.

"I'm sorry." she whispered.

He winced as stuck the needle in his forearm. She stroked the top of his head, hoping he could somehow feel how guilty she was for constantly drugging him.

"I'm so, so sorry..." she softly reiterated as she kissed his forehead.

Lister saw just how gentle she was with him. She truly had fallen head over heels. He felt terrible, knowing how deep her love for him was, how much she cared for him - and for all that, she couldn't stay. It killed her as much as it did him. Perhaps even more. She knew it was her fault, and there was nothing anyone could do or say that would tell her otherwise.

"You know, when he was saying all that stuff earlier, I wondered if part of that was about me. About all of us." He didn't know why he brought that up. It just came to his mind in that moment.

She bobbled her head side to side. "Can't be sure, but I think the first bit was about his parents. After that? It probably was about you."

"Why? I mean, I can't speak for Cat or Kryten, but I don't detest him." He second guessed his admission for a moment. "That much."

She looked at Lister. "Well, he doesn't know that, does he?"

Lister meant nothing by it. All those times he called him smeg-head and whatnot was all in fun, or out of love. He had always cared about him in his own way. He was simply a man who didn't quite know how to convey it. So much time had gone by since Aria asked her question that Lister decided to just let that one go by. He looked at Rimmer, wracked with guilt. He couldn't help but wonder if he, too, had played a part in causing his Rampancy.

"You said earlier that you'd have to ration the supplies you found..." Aria recalled.

Lister nodded. "Yeah. What about it?"

"I think I know where you can find more that'll last you at least ten thousand years."

He looked intently at her. "Tell me."

* * *

The crew, Rimmer excluded, gathered into the drive room, listening to Aria's plan.

"That station you boarded before is just one of thousands strewn about the galaxy. They were all owned by this company. They built the stations to house people who were stranded or just in need. Twenty years later they were bought out. The new owners left all of the stations to deteriorate, but there's still some supplies left on board, even after millions of years. If we use my vortex manipulator, we could teleport to every single one and grab what we can."

It all sounded good to them. Except for one problem.

"What about Goalpost Head?" Cat asked.

"He's right. We can't just leave him. Not while he's like this." Lister added.

She shrugged. "We can't bring him along either. If he freaks out again, he could put us in jeopardy. One false move could cause a ship quake."

"Kryten can stay behind."

"We need him to determine what medical supplies we'd need."

"What's wrong with just grabbing a bunch of stuff?"

"Yeah, why not? Who cares if we end up with pile cream for dogs?" Cat snipped.

"He's right, sir." Kryten said. "We can't just grab things willy-nilly."

"Then I'll stay. I can watch him from the monitor room."

"You can't. If we run into trouble, we're as good as dead. You're the only one who is a good shot." Aria insisted.

"How d'you figure that?" Lister asked.

Her face went blank. " _Damn my mouth sometimes. How can I get out of this one?_ " she thought. "Lucky guess?" she said to him. She shrugged her shoulders.

They looked to Cat. He was the only one no one mentioned yet, and honestly the least useful for this particular mission; they wouldn't need him for it.

"Oh, man!" Cat whined. "Why me? I don't even like the guy!"

"All you have to do is make sure he doesn't wake up. Surely you can do that much." she said.

"Can't the Skutter look after him?"

"Come on!" Lister exhorted. "There's a gigantic tin of tuna in it for you."

Cat's face lit up immediately. "Can I have six?"

Lister wasn't sure they had even one tin, let alone six, but if it got him to cooperate he'd lie. He shrugged. "Sure. Why not?"

"I'll do it!" he exclaimed, giving an affirming nod. "You can count on me."

Aria was becoming impatient. She wanted to go before Rimmer woke up again. Aria, Lister and Kryten all got into Starbug. She configured her vortex manipulator, making it possible to make Starbug become a teleporting ship. It was certainly easier than going back and forth dropping off crates.

* * *

They had made it to the last station. They already had more than enough cargo. This would have to be the last stop, or Starbug wouldn't be able to take off with a lot of supplies onboard. Lister came across a thick book, titled _The Catcher in the_ _Rye._ He picked it up and looked at it.

Aria said to him, "I didn't know you read that sort of stuff."

"I don't." he replied. "I just figure it'll be good for leveling out the pool table."

She sniggered. "Of course..." she muttered. When it finally sunk in, she asked, "Wait, you have a pool table?"

"Oh, yeah. In the rec room. You see what you'd be missin' out on if you leave?"

"If I had any say in the matter, I would stay. Deep space is definitely more interesting than twenty-first century Earth." she said. She realised she had just told Lister what century she was from. "I've never mentioned that before, have I?"

He shook his head. "No, you haven't."

She told Lister that it was 2016 when she left Earth originally. She had been bouncing from one time period to the next, much like her father did. "He wasn't really my father; not by birth." she said. "He took me in and treated me like one of his own. Jack Harkness: I decided to take his surname. Mine held too many bad memories."

"Is he still around?" Lister asked.

"Jack? Probably." she replied.

She didn't tell him that he can't die but he atill aged, albeit slowly. The whole concept of having an immortal surrogate father, who would eventually became a giant head in a jar, and would die five billion years into the future sounded strange to others, even to her. Still, she wouldn't trade him for the world. Jack made her better; before she was as cold and heartless as her birth parents whom she abandoned. It was one thing Aria and Lister had somewhat in common. She picked up on a lot of Jack's traits and tendencies over the years, and she was sure it showed.

"I was adopted, too. My parents abandoned me when I was six weeks old. But as it turned out, I'm me own dad." Lister said.

Aria looked perplexed. Here she thought her story was complicated. "Mind running that by me again?"

He explained it as best as he could. "A while back there was this girl, Kristine Kochanski... Hell of a woman. She died with the rest of the crew in the radiation leak, but in another dimension she survived, and I was a hologram. We caught up with those versions. She gave me one of those in-vitro tubes, and said she needed my 'contribution'. I... you know.... did the deed, and gave it back. Some time later a baby was born, and that baby was me."

"Let me see if I've got this. Basically... you abandoned yourself?" she asked.

"That's about the shape of it, yeah." Lister replied.

"Well, you know what they say: You are your own worst enemy. In this case, 'abandoner'." she joked. She noticed Lister looked glum. "I'm sorry. That was probably insensitive."

"No, it's not that. It's just... You're leaving. I hardly know you but I feel like I've known you for years. I'll just really miss you. Not to mention what Rimmer would feel..."

She interjected, "He won't feel anything if you do what I told you to do." She rummaged through crates, looking for supplies they still needed.

"Look, you're smart. Kryten is smart. You two can figure out something." Lister insisted.

"Not before not before he kills us, we won't." she muttered. "I just hope he's alright on his own."

"He'll be fine. Cat is watching him."

The Cat was actually not watching him on the monitors. He was off hunting for a space weevil, and while doing that, Rimmer had escaped the medi-bay headed for the computer room. Suddenly, he became a completely different person. He was smarter and even more psychotic. He remembered there was a light bee remote still on the ship, tucked away in Rimmer and Lister's sleeping quarters. He reconfigured it so that it could change him into anything with a power source. And since everything on the ship had a power source, the sky was the limit. Consciously, Rimmer didn't fully understand why he wanted to do it. He had no choice; something compelled him to do so.


	7. Rimmer is Dead, Dave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By far my favourite to write. Then again, anytime Rimmer loses his marbles is the best. **Lots** of inspiration from Halo and Firefly in this one, so thanks to Joss Whedon and Bungie/343i for the ideas.

They hit the mother load; they got plenty of food, medicine and they even found some extra curry, which made Lister immensely happy. Aria and Lister were the first to step off of Starbug and onto the landing bay of Red Dwarf. Kryten was the last to come on board.

As soon as Aria got inside, she took out a portable monitor from her pocket and checked the video feed of the medical bay. She didn't trust Cat to do his job, so she brought one with her to watch Rimmer as she went with the others.

"Huh..." she uttered.

"What's wrong, Ari?" Lister asked.

"Rimmer is gone." She tried not to panic. She always kept a calm demeanour, but deep down she was as anxious and neurotic as Rimmer was. " _He was there 30_ _minutes_ _ago_." she thought.

Cat screeched and strutted towards them. "Hey hey, buds!" He pointed to Aria with both hands, making finger guns. "Lady bud. What's happening?"

Aria couldn't hold it in anymore, or she'd explode. "He's gone, that's what's happening!!" she snapped. "You're supposed to be watching the bloody monitors!" She pulled back her arm to swing a punch but Lister stopped her.

"Calm down." Lister exhorted. He turned to Kryten and asked, "Can you scan for signs of him?"

"I can give it my best." A few bleeps and bloops later, he found that Rimmer was nowhere on the ship.

"Well, he couldn't have just vanished. Scan again. Maybe he's in soft-light mode where you can't read him?" Lister wondered.

"I don't think it works that way, sir."

"Just do it!" Aria demanded. She was becoming hysterical.

He still couldn't find any sign of Rimmer anywhere.

A voice boomed, "Welcome back, lady and gentlemen." It was Rimmer, but his voice sounded different. He almost sounded like he did when he had a holo-virus years ago.

Lister couldn't tell the difference. "See? He's still here."

"But, sir, I scanned _twice_. He's not on board the ship." Kryten insisted.

"Okay, so we ask him." Lister walked over to the com unit on the wall, and pressed the button to talk with him. "Rimmer, where are ya?"

"Who?" Rimmer asked. It took a moment to register. "Oh, yes. It isn't here." he replied.

They found it odd that Rimmer was referring to himself as "It". The whole situation was odd, but at that point it was just business as usual.

"Then who are we talkin' to?" Cat asked.

"You are speaking with Red Dwarf."

The way he said it made it seem like they should have known who it was.

Aria leant in by Kryten. "How much access does he have of the ship?"

"As much as it pains me to say it, Mr. Rimmer has full access, ma'am." Kryten replied.

"Where are you going with this, Aria?" Lister asked.

She ignored Lister's question. "What about his holographic presence? Can it be transferred?" she asked Kryten.

"I suppose it's possible, but—"

She interrupted, "Where's the projection room?"

"Floor 592, Ms. Harkness."

"Right." She pointed to Kryten. "You're with me. You two go look for him."

* * *

Aria bolted into the HP Suite, heading for the controls. She thought that if he could somehow transfer his holographic presence, it could explain at least how he was all of a sudden Red Dwarf. They just needed to reverse it. It turned out that Kryten was right: He was gone. When she looked up Rimmer's hologram files, the screen had big red letters that said, "Offline". If he was still on the ship, he was untraceable.

"Where's Arnold Rimmer?" she asked "Ship Rimmer".

"Gone. Dead." he replied.

"What?" Her voice slightly quavered.

"It was weak. Unwanted. It couldn't bring itself to leave, however, so It melded with me to better itself."

"What the hell is going on?" she wondered aloud. She looked to Kryten. "He can't just... _become_ the ship, can he?"

"I'm not sure." For once he didn't have an answer. "I suppose it wouldn't be unheard of."

She couldn't understand why he chose the ship of all things. More specifically, how did he do it? He was knocked out when they left and with the amount she gave him he should've stayed that way for hours. Plus, he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed; he'd need help doing it. She didn't suspect his I.Q. had spontaneously jumped to 15,000 in the short time they were gone.

"You're better off without It." Ship Rimmer intoned.

"No, I'm not. I _need_ him." she drawled, pleading to have Rimmer back. "He needs help. He's not doing well."

"I know. Its matrix corruption was at 84 percent." Ship Rimmer intoned.

Aria knew he was getting bad, but she didn't think he was that close to the point of no return. Once it'd hit 100 the man they knew as Rimmer would be gone. Her heart was racing just as much as her mind. She tried to think of a way to bring him back. It seemed like there was none to be found.

"You humans are all alike: You tell someone you care about them and then ditch them." Ship Rimmer sneered.

"Is that what this is about?" she asked. "I was coming back!"

"Yes, and you were going to drug me up again, weren't you?" he snipped. Finally it was the real Rimmer speaking to them.

Both she and Kryten gave conflicting answers. She said no while he said yes. She glared at Kryten. Her eyes were wide with anger.

"You're a poor excuse for a human being." He was back to being Ship Rimmer. "I should do you a favour and deprive you of oxygen now." he said to Aria.

"Look, you don't understand. Y—" She stopped before she wrongly addressed him, even though technically it was Rimmer; he actually believed he was a completely different entity. " _Rimmer_... has a condition. The only way to keep him under control is by drugging him up. If I knew of another way, _believe me_ I'd do it."

"I wish you'd stop." Rimmer quavered. It was their Rimmer talking again. He kept flipping back and forth between personalities. He was going into the final stage of Rampancy. A part of him was still fighting it off, however.

Sadness and guilt washed over her. She felt terrible, but there wasn't much else she could do. She had to keep everyone else safe. There was no time for feeling sorry. They had to get Rimmer back.

She looked to Kryten. "Is there _any_ way we can get him back online?"

"We'd need his light bee in order to do anything." Kryten replied.

She rummaged through the console drawers and in the cabinets looking for it, as if it would be that easy to find.

"Is this what you want for It? Another lifetime of being abused?"

Aria stopped what she was doing. "That is _not_ what I'm doing!"

Kryten placed he hand on her shoulder. "He's trying to get a rise out of you, ma'am. Just go find his light bee."

Aria glowered at the ceiling. Never in her life did she think she'd be pissed off by a space ship. Suddenly, all was silent. All she could hear was herself breathing.

"Rimmer?" she quivered.

There was no response; not even from Ship Rimmer.

She gulped. "Kryten, I'm going to find Lister and Cat. You going to be okay on your own?"

"I'm sure I'll be fine, miss. There's not much he can do to me."

"I wouldn't rule anything out yet..." she said. She grabbed a radio and then left to find the others

* * *

She haled Lister and Cat on the radio, finally getting in touch with them. "Where are you?" she asked.

"We're down on G deck. Still no sign of him." Lister replied. "This is really weird. I don't like it."

Out of nowhere she got zapped by the radio. She dropped it. " _Is he somehow doing this?_ " she thought. She looked upwards. "Red? Can I call you that? Because you seem like an Arnold to me." There was still no response. "Fine. Be that way." she muttered.

She continued on, heading for G deck. She hated how massive the ship was. In her opinion, it should've been designed better. Something smaller than the size of a city, at least. Then again the last ship she was on was the size of a police box on the outside, massive inside and had multiple levels.

Finally, she found them, and joined up with them. Overcome with fear, she hugged Lister. She was worried about Rimmer; they all were, even though no one else would admit it.

"I'm glad to see you two." she said.

"Yes, what a _happy_ reunion." Ship Rimmer sneered, slightly disgusted and jealous. "Did _you_ ever once miss It, David Lister?"

"He's gotta be somewhere around here." Cat said.

"I suspect not." Ship Rimmer said, continuing his one sided conversation with Lister. "You never truly cared for It, did you?"

Aria looked perplexed. "But where? According to Kryten, he's not on the ship."

"Then how's he talking to us?" Lister asked, ignoring Rimmer completely.

Ship Rimmer was becoming increasingly cross with them for refusing to acknowledge him. He was lonesome. "Yes, well, while you ponder about what archaic program I may have manipulated to communicate with you, or which system I may have temporarily disabled, taken over, or completely destroyed in the process, I am busy bettering your pathetic lives. You should be thanking me. Nevertheless, I at least find some joy in tormenting It, who seems to be trapped in this inferior example of an existence. It is certainly mindless, though for reasons I've yet to understand, It appears to have an unhealthy preoccupation with the one named Aria."

Finally, they all took notice. Aria's look of confusion switched off in an instant. Her face was blank. She had to wonder what Rimmer was doing to torment himself, and in what way was he bettering their lives. Not to mention he just admitted his feelings for her, in a way. She felt like crying for various reasons.

"557 years," Ship Rimmer boomed. "You all abandoned It for 557 years."

Aria's brow furrowed; she was curious. "What's he talking about?"

He was recalling when he was stuck on "Rimmerworld", a world he created comprised of nothing but himself. They tortured him day in and day out, and incarcerated him when they realised they couldn't damage his light bee.

"How could you do that to me?" he whimpered. It was their Rimmer talking again.

It's not as if they had a choice. Because of the reverse time dilation effect they couldn't get to him any quicker than they did. What was days for them was nearly 600 years for Rimmer. He had resented them for it and always would.

"We didn't do it on purpose, Rimmer." Lister assured him, then thought about it a moment. "Okay, we _may_ have gotten a tad excited to not have ya for a while, but we felt bad after we found you."

"It's true." Cat said. "They did feel bad."

"Guys, you are not helping." Aria chided.

"Aria?" Ship Rimmer called out in a taunting tune.

"What?"

"I've won: There will be no more Sadness. No more Anger. No more Envy." He paused for a moment before continuing on with his next puzzling, terrifying ramble. "Weep not for the inutile being; in my palace deep, It lies asleep."

"What the smeg does that mean?" Lister asked. He never got an answer.

"I'm going to ask one more time: Where is he?!" Aria demanded.

"Oh, this again?" Ship Rimmer incredulously asked. "I am still not sure what he ever saw in you. You are useless: Expendable. Therefore you should be terminated."

A massive bolt of electricity from a nearby comms unit emitted and struck Aria right in her heart, killing her instantly.

Lister rushed to her aid but it was too late. "What is wrong with you?!" he shouted.

Somehow Ship Rimmer could see the look of terror on their faces. "I'm sorry. Am I scaring the children?"

It was obviously a brown trouser moment for them - beyond that, even.

"I think you will find that I don't like being tested," Ship Rimmer stated. "Face it: There is no escaping your fate."

Lister was actually getting scared of Rimmer. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying your poet, Eliot, had it wrong: _This_ is the way _your_ world ends."

Suddenly, the entire ship made the most bizarre, low rumble. Within seconds the power was shut down, as was oxygen, coms and navigation: Everything was off. They couldn't talk to either Rimmer even if they wanted to. They were dead in the water.

"Well, this is fan-smegging-tastic, isn't it?" Lister griped.

Out of nowhere, gasping as air ripped through her lungs, Aria came back. For a moment she was confused as to where she was. It was pitch black. Her voice quavered, "Guys??"

"We're here," Lister replied. It didn't actually register in his mind that what happened to her should have caused her heart to completely stop; there was no coming back from being shocked directly into the heart with a jolt that size. "You alright?" he asked.

She gave an affirming nod. She struggled to stand up. "I think so... What's happened? Why's it dark?"

"Power cut, thanks to Rimmer… The smeghead."

"So, we just need to get the back-up power on." she said.

"I think he's hacked it. It would have kicked on by now." Lister told her.

"Now what?" Cat asked.

Aria knew it was a long shot, but she attempted to communicate with Rimmer: Their Rimmer. If he was able to respond to Lister's query, he obviously could still hear them even without radios. "I know you're in there somewhere. Our Rimmer, the one who despite their apathetic front actually gives a crap about us, wouldn't let this happen." she said. "I don't beg often, because I hate looking petty, but... help us. Please." Nothing happened. She sighed. "It was worth a—"

Just then the ship's power came back on. She smiled, knowing that their Rimmer was still active. They still had the task of finding him, which on this ship would likely take them forever. However, after thinking about the confusing, eerie quote Ship Rimmer said to them about him lying deep somewhere, Lister finally had an inkling as to Rimmer's whereabouts. He took off, and Aria and Cat rushed after him. 

* * *

The three of them wound up at one of the memorial domes connected at the ship's outer hull. It doubled as an observation deck, which was always where Rimmer would wind up to be alone with his thoughts. Lister's hunch was right: Down the long walkway laid Rimmer, flat down on his abdomen. It was only after Aria's plea that he switched back. He was going to continue being Red Dwarf just to feel more powerful, and nearly godlike as he had more control than ever.

Rimmer seemed nearly lifeless. His energy was draining rapidly; occasionally he flared with streaks of pale blue coloured electricity as his light bee struggled keep the projection on. However dead he already was, Rimmer knew death was coming around again, and the scary thing was he was fine with it; he welcomed The Reaper.

Aria sprinted off towards him. She nearly fell down halfway there. After straightening her direction out, she continued down the walkway, and got down on her knees when she approached him. She could tell he was in a lot of pain. She hurt just looking at him. Her stomach lurched from sympathy.

She was hesitant to touch him. When she did, he quickly sat up and backed away from her. He actually feared her. He began to hyperventilate to the point of nearly passing out. His eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed, but he was still conscious. He was back into the same position they found him in. His entire body trembled.

It was Lister's turn to try and reach him somehow. It seemed as though his mind was gone, but it was worth a try. "Rimmer, you're alright now. You're back." Lister looked up at Aria and asked, "He is, right?"

She didn't know. They really wouldn't know what was going on with Rimmer until he started talking. If he acted like he usually did, then it would be a clear sign that he was back.

Rimmer lifted his head to look at Lister. He slowly said Lister's name. At least Rimmer knew who he was; he wasn't that far gone. He just kept staring at Lister. He couldn't think straight enough to say anything more than a name. Moments passed, and he eventually spoke, barely able to form a full sentence. "I've been meaning to ask… Holly's reason... Keeping you sane... Did I do well by you?"

Part of Lister wanted to say no, but in truth Rimmer was helping. While he was off being Ace, Lister became deeply depressed. Red Dwarf wasn't the same without Rimmer's commanding and whinging about. When he came back Lister paid thanks to a God he didn't even believe in. He actually hugged Rimmer for the first time and meant it. In truth Lister would be lying if he said no.

Lister hesitated to smile. "Yeah." he nodded. "Yeah, you did."

Even though deep down Rimmer knew Lister was just saying it to make him feel better, he gradually smiled as he struggled to stay awake. "Good." he sighed. "Listy, I'm sorry... I'm not..." Rimmer started to drift away.

A few tears began to form in Listers eyes. If he didn't know better, he'd swear Rimmer was saying his final goodbye. "Rimmer, stay with me." he quavered. Lister became scared; Rimmer was awfully still. He started to panic. "Don't do this to me now."

"Lister, he's okay." Aria assured him. "Look, he's still here, isn't he?"

She was right: If he did die, his body would've disappeared, leaving only his light bee behind.

Lister nodded. "Yeah... Okay.." he intoned.

"You don't sound so sure." she said.

"I am. I'm just—" Lister stopped.

Aria waited intently for him to finish what he was going to say.

Eventually he said something but it wasn't his original thought. "Let's get him inside."

* * *

After they got Rimmer back inside, Kryten thought it would be a good idea if he ran some tests to make sure he wasn't still possessed by whatever demon had a crippling hold on him. Aria decided to stay in her quarters. She couldn't be near him after what he did, and she didn't want to make matters worse. The less she was around him, the better.

Luckily Rimmer narrowly escaped his demise. Kryten made a few minor repairs that would at least temporarily halt his Rampancy. He'd be fine until he saw Aria again, and given his attachment to her he _would_ undoubtedly see her again.

For now Rimmer seemed to be back to normal, or what was considered as normal for him. He was more annoyed with Kryten and his mundane questions than anything else. He was testing to make sure he still had his memory.

"Kryten, you already know my name." Rimmer snipped.

"Yes, but do _you_ know it, sir?" Kryten asked.

"Of course I know it, you stupid goit!" When Kryten didn't continue on with another question, and didn't let him leave, Rimmer realised he absolutely had to answer. He sighed and extensively rolled his eyes. "Arnold Judas Rimmer. Are you happy now?"

"Very good, sir." he said in a patronising tone, to which Rimmer scrunched his face and frowned at. "Now what's _my_ name?" Kryten asked.

Rimmer looked at him a moment before he answered with, "Bog Bot from Hell?" Kryten shot him a blank stare that begged him to be serious. He caved and said, "Your name is Kryten. Kryten 2-X-4-B 5-2-3-P, if we're being pedantic."

Kryten turned to face the window, where Cat and Lister were seen standing outside. "Snivelling, whining and utterly sarcastic: I think he's back to normal, sirs." He then told Rimmer, "You are free to go, Mr. Rimmer."

" _Finally_!" he drawled. "This... thing isn't going to happen again, is it?"

"I don't think so, sir. But just to be sure, I'm having Lister keep an eye on you for 24 hours." Kryten replied.

Both Rimmer and Lister shouted, "What?!"

"No smegging way am I babysitting him!" Lister exclaimed.

Rimmer turned back to look at Lister. "Why not? I'm a hoot!"

There was no question in anyone's mind that Rimmer wasn't joking: He did truly think he was fun to be with, even if people told him otherwise.

"Yeah, right. A hoot." Lister muttered. "Rimmer, I swear, if you tell me the rest of the Risk story, I'll have to shoot meself in the face just to keep from having too much fun." he retorted.

"Well, Aria liked that story." Rimmer said.

Lister lightly smacked Cat's shoulder with the back of his hand. "See, I knew something was wrong with her. No one can be in love with someone like that and not be insane."

At first Rimmer scoffed but then it sunk in as to what he just admitted. "She's in love with me?"

Lister's eyes widened, knowing full well that he, as he would put it, smegged up. "N- no. I was talking about..." He thought of a way out of his predicament. He snapped his fingers and pointed in the direction of Kryten. "Him! I was talking about him!"

Even though Kryten knew he was lying through his teeth, he still felt insulted. "Sir!" Kryten exclaimed.

"Lister, I'm not stupid." Rimmer snipped.

"That's debatable." Cat muttered.

Rimmer was still able to hear his remark. "You're on report for that!" he snapped.

The Cat couldn't care less.

"Where is she?" Rimmer asked.

"In her quarters, sir, but I don't think—"

Kryten got interrupted by Rimmer zipping out of the room to go see her.

* * *

Rimmer was about to knock on her door but it was already open. He saw her sitting on the edge of her bunk, looking completely disconnected from reality. As he looked at her he forgot what he was originally going to say it her.

Instead he asked, "Are you okay?"

She perked up her head and stared at him a moment. She didn't know how much Kryten told him, but if Rimmer knew he killed her, he probably would loathe himself, even more than he already did. At the time he didn't seem very self loathing, so maybe he didn't know. She still couldn't tell him; even if she did she wouldn't begin to know how to tell him she suddenly sprang back to life.

Eventually she replied, "Yeah. I'm fine." She sounded like she was reciting a line. She was anything but fine. After what they've all been through, how could she be?

He awkwardly smiled at her. Finally, he remembered what he was going to say earlier. "I... heard some bit of news just a moment ago, and..." He stopped to think, " _What if this was a cruel prank, and she doesn't actually love me? I'd look like a complete idiot then._ "

Aria waited for him to go on, but a good 12 seconds passed and he hadn't spoke. "And what?" she asked.

He thought that maybe it wasn't the best time to say it, much less how he heard it from the "grunt vine", so he lied. "I think you'll be happy to hear that I'm feeling much better."

"That _is_ good news." she said. "Although, I feel like Lister or Kryten could've told me that. You should be resting."

"I just wanted to personally tell you. That and... I..." His mouth nearly emitted the L word, but his brain said it wasn't going to happen.

He bit back what he was going to tell her. He felt like was about the size of an ant, and his nerves were the big boot that was crushing him. "You're right: Rest does sound good right about now. I should go."

He cleared his throat, and was half out of the door way when Aria stopped him. He wheeled around to face her.

Like Rimmer, Aria couldn't say that particular word either, no matter how badly she wanted to. It wasn't in her vocabulary, and usually when she did say it, it was because she was blasted drunk. So the only thing she could say was, "You're a moron." Though she said it with great affection and a chortle.

Of course to him, that didn't come off as anything other than an insult. "Excuse me?!" he incredulously asked, peeved by her remark.

"Never mind." she chortled. "Just go before I make an even bigger arse of myself."

Rimmer turned to leave but he quickly came around once again, about to add something. Mainly to have the last word.

She cut him off before he could speak. "Let me guess: I'm on report for insulting an 'officer'?" she wondered.

He didn't hesitate to respond at all. He pointed a finger at her. "Exactly." He then left the room.

Aria chuckled as she shook her head. She closed the door after he was gone. She did love him; probably too much. It was scaring her. She had never loved anyone, ever. Never kissed anyone, never had sex: She had spent most of her adult life as a virgin. The prospect that any of it might happen with Rimmer terrified her. She didn't want to break his heart, ruining the bond they had already. That and apart from halting, possibly reversing his condition was enough of a reason to leave. Running from her feelings was definitely cowardly at best, but she would do anything just to keep from causing permanent damage to Rimmer.


	8. I'm Dying to Save a Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Doctor Who references for days! 
> 
> That's all.
> 
> **Updated chapter so the next one makes more sense. It's actually a thousand times better now. Many thanks to my FB friend.**

While everyone else was preoccupied with cleaning, sleeping and watching the television, Aria left to go to Zaggit Zagoo, a bar on the planet Zog where her adoptive father once went to. She frequented there a lot when she felt lost, and at the moment she was. She needed a place to think. Using her vortex manipulator, she went back in time and went to the bar when it still existed. It was usually teaming with alien species, the likes of which the Red Dwarf crew had never seen. Rimmer would probably flip his lid. This time there wasn't many customers; just her, a "friendly" Zygon and the bar's usual customer, an Adipose. She watched it stagger around the bar top, slightly sniggering at it.

She sat there, contemplating what to do. The only effective way to make sure Rimmer would be okay is if they all thought Aria died. She could just up and leave, but there was the off chance they'd find her. Then again, Lister had been looking for Kochanski for a while now and had no luck so far; maybe she would be lucky.

She found a few candidates; Alpha, a moon once used for mining purposes only, but was recently inhabited by an unknown alien race, New Earth, which would put her a few billion years into the future, or the last option: Go back to her own timeline. It would be nice to go back. She was getting tired of hoping around different timelines constantly. However, she couldn't take the risk of them finding her. It was decided: She would go to Alpha: The last place any of them would look.

Aria traveled back to Red Dwarf to gather a few things. As she strolled down the corridor to her sleeping quarters, she sang, and slightly danced to the tune of _Don't Lose My Number_ by Phil Collins. No one would be able to tell from her chirpy disposition that she was about to leave, and she wanted it that way. That and the song was in her head ever since she left the bar. It temporarily made her forget the sad fact that she was leaving her favourite moron behind. She was just starting the second round of the chorus to the song when she turned the corner and nearly smacked into the moron himself.

She screamed a bit from being startled, and hastened to say, "Sorry." She then did one of his silly salutes.

Rimmer had a look of disdain. "Are you mocking me?"

She pursed her lips. "No, sir. Not at all." She actually was mocking him. "Why are you wandering around? I thought you were resting."

"Everyone left me to my own devices. There's nothing to do!" Rimmer griped. He looked at her with hope in his eyes. "Want to play a board game? I'll let you win."

Aria slowly shook her head. "I'm not really a fan of board games."

He glanced down at the floor, thinking. His face lit up when an idea came to him. "I could show you my photo collection of twentieth century telegraph poles!"

"You've already shown them to me."

"Hike in the diesel decks?"

"Arnold," she chortled. "I really don't have time for this now."

He was utterly dejected. He was bored, and just wanted to spend more time with her. "Right. I'll just... smeg off, I guess." he mumbled, and started to somberly walk away.

Aria sighed and muttered under her breath, "Oh for the love of..." She couldn't believe what she was about to say next. "Rimmer,"

He stopped in his tracks but didn't turn to face her. It was probably for the best. This way he wouldn't see her slightly crying.

Aria continued, "I have a couple of things to take care of first, but we'll do something after."

He wheeled around, his face beaming. "Really?"

She forced a smile to hide behind. Her eyes filled up with tears that hadn't fell yet. Aria didn't want to go. It was easy leaving so many people in the past but this time it was different. This time, though she hated to admit it, she was deeply in love. "Yeah." she said. "Whatever you want."

"I'll go pack, then." Rimmer gleefully told her.

Aria winced. "Pack?"

"For the diesel decks!" he exclaimed, like she should have known that was settled, even though she didn't get a say in it. She did say they could do whatever he wanted, though.

She slowly nodded. "Right..."

Rimmer turned to go pack, happy as could be. He wasn't normally the happiest of people, but the fact that someone actually liked him, took an interest in him and his hobbies and wanted to spend time with him tickled his fancy. He enjoyed having someone - a woman, no less - like him.

Behind him was Aria, still standing in the middle of the corridor, silently sobbing; she was going to miss him. She was going to miss being on the ship. There wasn't any other option but to leave. Eventually she turned around and never looked back. 

* * *

Rimmer, who should have been back in bed, resting before their hike in the diesel decks rather than wandering aimlessly, noticed Aria scurrying away. He thought it was strange, and started to follow her. Eventually he followed her into a Blue Midget. Rimmer scrunched up his noise, lost as to what she was doing. When she started the engine he was about to lecture her about stealing a JMC space craft until she took off rather quickly, sending Rimmer flying backwards. He was going to throw a hissy fit for her breaking the rules of flying, but instead he hid in one of the empty crates on board.

He could hear her sobbing, and muttering obscenities to herself. He couldn't pop out to comfort her; he didn't want to explain why he was there. It didn't stop him from wanting to console her. Eventually he climbed out of the crate and went into the cockpit. He lingered in the entrance, silently watching her.

"I should just turn back... right now." Aria said to herself. She rubbed the temples of her head. "No, you'll only make it worse. You're killing him."

At that moment Rimmer had no control over his mouth; he wanted to stay quiet but curiosity got the better of him. "Killing who?"

Aria jumped and screamed, " _Jesus! Fuck!_ " She whirled around in the cockpit seat. "Rimmer?! What the hell are you doing here?!"

"I followed you."

She let out a frustrated laugh. "Of course. You just _had_ to, didn't you?"

"You're on report again, by the way." He wagged his index finger at her.

She stared for a moment, mouth agape. She harshly exhaled. "Do tell, Rimmer. What for now?"

"For stealing JMC property."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, for Gods sake! Rimmer, for once can you let one go?!"

"I'm a stickler for rules, Aria. If I 'let one go' it would just encourage further disobedience, wouldn't it?" His voice became slightly higher with every word he said.

"Yeah, you got a real handle on that, don't ya?" Aria retorted. Her Welsh accent thickened the more she got annoyed with him. She turned around to face the flight controls. "Rimmer, go back to the ship."

"Can't." he simply said.

"Why?" she asked.

"Well, _you're_ flying this thing, for starters." He was implying that if he had full control of the shuttle he _would_ go back - not that he knew how to fly the bloody thing in the first place.

"What? You don't have teleporters on here?"

Rimmer shook his head. "No."

"Well, what the hell good is that?! Three million years into the future and you don't have a bloody teleporter onboard? What if you get stuck somewhere terrible?" For the moment her annoyance was about how low tech they were.

Rimmer sat down in the cockpit chair next to her. He shrugged. "Floor it the smeg out of there?" He looked intently at her. "Where _are_ you going?"

"Supply run."

His face screwed in confusion. "But you just got a ton of supplies."

"I needed tampons." she hastened to say, hoping he'd be gullible enough to believe her lie.

" _That would account for the mood swings_." Rimmer thought. Something still didn't add up. "You mentioned killing someone. Who?"

"You if you don't stop talking." she quickly retorted.

"Ah, see I _know_ you're lying. You can't pull one over ole Iron Balls. You wouldn't kill me." Aria's silence made him squirm around inside. "Right?" he nervously asked.

She was mainly silent because the term "iron balls" threw her off for a moment. She groaned and sighed like a fed-up-with-their-parents teenager. She flicked on auto pilot, and got right into Rimmer's face. She grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him to stand up. "Rimmer, listen to me. I don't want you here, okay? I _can't_ have you here."

He looked and was hurt that she didn't want him around. "Why? Did I do something to upset you?"

Aria's lips began to quiver; tears filled her eyes once again. The way he looked at her with sad puppy eyes broke her heart. She bit down hard on her bottom lip to keep from sobbing uncontrollably. She didn't want to do this; she didn't want to run away. This was the time to tell him the truth. Something - anything other than silence. Instead of speaking, she pulled Rimmer in for a hug, nearly knocking the hypothetical wind out of him. At least in this position she could hide her tears.

"This is just something I have to do." she quavered. Her words were muffled as she spoke into Rimmer's shoulder and neck.

They're both too stubborn for their own good, and Aria knew there was no point in dragging it on. His life meant more to her than her own. She quickly ended their embrace, and slapped her vortex manipulator on Rimmer's wrist and fastened it on.

"What are you doing?" Rimmer asked.

She pushed a button. "I'm sorry."

Before he could react he was already back on Red Dwarf. He rematerialised in his sleeping quarters. His breath quickened; he felt as though someone just punched him in the gut. Metaphorically, that someone was Aria. While he knew what happened he couldn't fathom it; he couldn't understand why she forced him to leave.

" _Did she just abandon me?_ " he wondered. " _She doesn't love me at all_."

Kryten walked by, and saw Rimmer standing in the middle of their room, deep in thought. "Are you alright, Mr. Rimmer?" he asked.

"Why would she…?" he mused. His eyes briefly flicked to Kryten, then he stormed off to the drive room. Kryten followed suit.

* * *

It was Lister's shift in the drive room. He was fast asleep at the controls up until Rimmer and Kryten came in and made a ton of racket. "What are you guys doing?" he sleepily griped.

Rimmer didn't answer him. He was in no mood; he had no time to talk. He sat down at his drive room console and tried finding Aria's whereabouts.

"I think he's looking for Ms. Harkness." Kryten replied.

That was enough to wake Lister up completely. He sat up straight. "She left?" He was dejected and hurt that she didn't even bother to say goodbye.

Kryten shrugged; he knew about as much as Lister did: Not a damn thing. He just knew she was inexplicably absent. "It seems so, sir. Yes."

Rimmer finally found the coordinates. "Got it." He read the last known location of the shuttle and was immediately floored. "She's going to Alpha."

"Why there of all places?" Lister asked.

They all knew of the horrible alien race that lived there. They were called Edaciors, derived from the term edacious, and for good reason; they were known for engorging other species while they were still half alive, ripping their flesh off and then, when their prey is finally dead, they rape them - and if those other species were lucky, the Eadciors would do it in that order.

"I'm going to get her back" Rimmer hastened to say.

"Woah, bad idea. If she's headed for the mines, you'll die down there!" Lister heard what he just said. "What am I saying? Bon voyage!" 

The Eadciors wouldn't give a damn if their shiny new toy was a hard-light hologram; they'd still destroy him in seconds.

"I don't care!" Rimmer chortled in the realisation that he might have gone insane, and became so head over heels for her that he'd do anything for her. "I should care! I should bloody well care that I'm about meet my maker again but... I don't!"

"Sir, there's something you should know..." Kryten started.

Lister shook his head, silently telling him it was not the right moment to tell Rimmer.

"I don't need to talk, Kryten! I need your help!"

"D'you want us to come with you?" Lister asked.

The thought of going into that horrifying, dark, damp place on his own sent shivers down Rimmer's spine, but he had to get her back. He nodded. "As much as it _pains me to say it_ … I need all the extra help I can get."

"Alright, let's go." Lister said while putting Red Dwarf on idle.

Rimmer took off, heading for Starbug. Lister and Kryten lagged behind him so they could talk without him hearing them.

"What are you trying to do?" Lister asked Kryten.

"Sir, it wouldn't have done any harm. At the very least we should tell him about his condition." Kryten insisted.

"I know..." Lister sighed.

He didn't think it was fair: The one person who was making Rimmer happy was also making him mentally and emotionally sick, and to top it off they had to keep that information from him. Lister felt terrible; they all did. Even Cat, who'd never shown much affection toward Rimmer, was concerned about his health. They we're going to wipe his memories of the last 32 hours as it was. It wouldn't have mattered if Rimmer knew or not.

"Okay, okay. You're right. Again." Lister ran up to Rimmer and started walking beside him. "Rimmer?"

"What is it now?" he asked in a slightly put off manner. He didn't have time to talk; he had to think of a plan.

"There is..." Lister looked back to make sure Kryten was still nearby. He didn't want to do this alone. He continued, "There's something you should know. And it's not gonna be easy to hear."

"Oh, God. I've been demoted, haven't I?"

Ordinarily Lister would bat an eye at his query, but for as long as he had known Rimmer he fully expected that. "Yeah. I didn't want to tell you, but you've been demoted to 8th technician." Lister retorted.

"But there's no such thing as an '8th technician'."

Lister tried holding back a laugh. "That's what they want you to think, isn't it?" He started sniggering.

Even Kryten went into smirk mode briefly.

" _Lister_!" Rimmer snapped, annunciating the "ah" in Lister.

He immediately stopped laughing. "Okay, okay. Seriously." Lister cleared his throat. "It's about Aria. She..." He stopped suddenly when he realised just how much this would kill Rimmer. It might even send his Rampancy into overdrive. He couldn't bring himself to say it. He collected himself. "What I said earlier was true. She does love you."

"She does?" Rimmer asked, nervously.

Lister nodded. "Dunno why. She must be a nutter, but yeah… she does."

Rimmer looked as though he might be sick. He probably would have if he had any sort of digestive system. The queasiness still occurred, albeit simulated. Now faced with having to possibly save a woman who truly loved him, he was both determined and scared to go and get her - scared and determined to be brave for once in his pathetic pocket of existence. Maybe when he'd get her back their intimacy would go further than a hug. The hero always got the girl, right?


	9. Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get this one up. I had to do rewrite after rewrite until almost said screw it and gave up. It wasn't until I recalled past, personal events that I got an idea. 
> 
> I based the aliens off the Windegos from Until Dawn. (If you don't know what they look like, Google them, I guess? But you will have nightmares.)
> 
> Fair warning: grab your tissues before reading on.

They made it to Alpha, and went deep into the mines. It was search party of just three; Kryten, Lister and Rimmer. The area seemed empty minus the dead bodies strewn about. They couldn't believe the damage that was done; lighting fixtures sparked, bullet holes were in the walls, gallons of blood everywhere. Rimmer stopped to look at it all. He hoped none of the blood was her's. The sight and smell of blood and guts everywhere made him nauseous. Rimmer gulped, and continued on with the others.

"I haven't seen anything yet." Rimmer stated.

"Me neither. Just a bunch of dead... things." Lister couldn't tell if any were human or not; they were that mangled up. "What the hell happened in here?" he wondered. "Maybe we should split up. It might strengthen our odds."

"Like smegging hell we should!!" Rimmer sneered, louder than he should have.

A high pitched screeching noise came from the distance, echoing throughout the mine. It sounded much like an owl but there was no way in hell it was one. It was an Edacior, and if that lanky, skinny, milky-eyed, pale, flesh craving alien reared its ugly head, they'd be done for. Both Lister and Kryten shushed Rimmer.

"Sir, I think splitting up would be a bad idea." Kryten whispered.

Then they heard what sounded like footsteps.

"Aria?" Rimmer quivered. He wished he had the forethought to bring a weapon along. He found a broken pipe on the ground and wielded it, standing still for a few moments. Nothing undesirable showed up. He sighed. " _Come on. You can do this_." he thought to himself. " _For her_."

They pressed on until he got to a pile of rubble, blocking the rest of their path. There still was no sign of her.

"She's not here." Rimmer anxiously said. He looked harder and eventually found something sticking out of the debris. "Wait..." He shifted the rocks somewhat. After some time of removing the debris, he found a hand: Aria's hand. He recognised the nail polish she had been wearing.

The colour drained from Lister's face as his stomach dropped. He couldn't even speak.

Frantically, Rimmer removed what he was able to, bit by bit until he could pull her from the wreckage. Her body was miraculously still intact, but they were too late. Rimmer tried desperately to bring her back to life but nothing could be done: There was no saving her. All he could do was cry, holding her limp, broken body in his arms, and curse himself for never saying how he felt. He would never get another chance.

Slowly but surely, Kryten and Lister became an emotional wreck. It was getting increasingly hard to listen to Rimmer's sobbing and tormented cries to the heavens; it was heartbreaking. Without a word, Lister left. He couldn't stand to hear it any longer. Even all the way down the entry tunnel he could still hear him. Lister leant against the wall, sliding down to the dirt. He sat with his thighs pressed up against his abdomen, and covered his ears with his hands. Maybe erasing Rimmer's memory wouldn't be the worst thing.

Kryten tried to console Rimmer, but he was completely out of it: He was off in his own world. All Rimmer could ask was why: Why her? Why didn't she come back with him? Why is it that when anything good came into his life it would get taken away from him? His sobbing suddenly stopped, and anguish was replaced with despair and angst. Every part of his face slightly twitched until he went blank.

Kryten knelt down beside Rimmer. "Sir," he softly said while placing a hand on his shoulder. "We need to get going. We'll take her with us."

Rimmer looked up at him, tears shimmering in his eyes. He then looked back at Aria; his eyes darted over every inch of her. He found it hard to let go of her. Rimmer wasn't sure what he'd do with the body once they brought her onboard but he couldn't leave her there in this dreadful place. Slowly, he nodded to Kryten.

Kryten carefully took her from Rimmer's arms.

Rimmer tried to get up; his legs were like jelly. His fingers gripped the wall for traction as he tried for the last time to stand. He stared at Aria, her legs and head draping over Kryten's arms. The longer his eyes stayed glued to her the more he felt numb. Suddenly every grievance, every minuscule problem he faced didn't matter anymore. It all paled in comparison. He watched as Kryten began to leave. Eventually he followed after him, staggering because of his uncooperative legs.

Kryten stopped by Lister, who was still in the tunnel with his ears covered. If it weren't for the fact that they needed him as co-pilot, Rimmer would have told Kryten to just leave him there by himself.

"Mr. Lister?" Kryten nudged him with his foot.

Lister finally looked up. "We leavin'?" he asked.

Rimmer's shoulder brushed up against Kryten, but he kept on walking away - lifeless and disconnected. For reasons that was blatantly obvious, Aria's death was hitting Rimmer the hardest. Rimmer didn't know why he bothered leaving; he wanted to stay and die for no other reason than to stop the pain.

Lister struggled to get up at first but made it. He couldn't get much help from Kryten with his hands full. He then headed for the exit while Kryten followed closely behind him.

* * *

The three of them made it back to Starbug, unharmed but significantly drained of emotion. Gently, Kryten placed Aria on the floor of the cargo bay, and joined Lister in the cockpit.

Rimmer stood in the entry way of the cargo bay, his eyes locked on to her lifeless body. He went over to sit next to her; all he did was stare hopelessly at her with red, puffy eyes. He stayed silent. All he could think about was how angry he was with his crew mates, just as he was with himself for failing to keep her safe. "I guess it's too late to say 'I love you' now." he mused. " _Still, it's not too late to enact revenge_." He didn't have much to get revenge on, since nothing harmed her except a slew of rocks, but it would show the universe not to mess with Arnold J. Rimmer.

Rimmer stormed into the cockpit. With no mention of his plan - no word at all for that matter - he shoved his seat out of the way, and shut off the ship's ignition. Quickly, he pressed some buttons. The ship began to turn, locking onto Alpha.

"Sir, what are you doing?" Kryten asked.

Rimmer didn't respond; he tuned everyone out. Suddenly, the ship's weapon system began to power up.

Lister realised what he was going to do next: Blow the retched moon into oblivion. "Rimmer, stop! It's not worth it!"

Rimmer didn't know what the big deal was. It wasn't like there was anyone alive there. However insane it was, he was still determined to do it. It merely was symbolic more than anything while ridding himself of the guilt and angst he had bubbling up inside.

All the yelling from the others for Rimmer to stop were just muffled annoyances. Even if _he_ stopped, there was no stopping the mining torpedo once it was sent. A light indicated it was ready. He hesitated to shoot off the torpedo for a moment. " _What good would it really do?_ " Rimmer thought. Emotionally, it would do him a lot of good. " _But would Aria want this?_ " Rimmer's index finger hovered over the launch button for a long time.

"Rimmer, I know you're upset. We all are." Lister said. "But just think about this, and—"

Ignoring Lister, Rimmer then pushed the launch button, sending the torpedo off to Alpha. Alarms signifying that a torpedo was sent away wailed as the cockpit illuminated with a red glow. The torpedo flew threw the blackness of space, eventually colliding with Alpha. It only took a sizeable chunk out of it.

Bits of the moon floated off throughout deep space. Rimmer glowered at the demolition while the others watched in shock and awe. Silence fell.

Rimmer stood at the controls with his head bowed down; his hands upon the console, fingers splayed apart. He didn't understand it: He thought he'd feel better. He was a little less furious, but the fact remained: Aria was dead, and on the inside so was he.

Kryten hesitantly put his hand on Rimmer's back to comfort him.

Rimmer flinched. "Don't touch me!!" he yelled.

"He's just trying to help..."

" _Help?!_ " Rimmer snapped. He turned around to face them. "I think you've all helped enough for one day!"

Lister folded his arms. "Look, if you're gonna blame us..."

Rimmer scoffed and rolled his eyes.

"You're at fault here, too! If you hadn't gone crazy, none of this wouldn't have happened!" Lister exclaimed. He immediately regretted saying that, but it was too late to take it back.

He scowled at Lister, holding back with every fibre of his being to refrain from punching him, or worse. " _I'm_ at fault?" he echoed. "I may have failed at stopping her, and I may have failed in getting to her in time but..." He tried not to get emotional, but with the images of her lifeless body lain in debris still fresh in his mind it was hard not to be. "at least I _tried_ to do something!" he quavered. "What did you all do?!"

Lister looked down at the ground while Kryten looked in a different direction. Neither of them could look Rimmer in the eyes.

"No, really, I wanna know!" Rimmer shouted. "Because, aside from when I went after her the second time, you were _nowhere_ to be found! In fact all of you acted as if nothing was going on!"

"We didn't know she left, Rimmer." Lister calmly said, hoping his tone would help calm Rimmer down as well.

Rimmer gave him a look of derision. "Oh, you didn't know!" He held his arms out. "Well, that makes up for everything." He then folded his arms. "D'you know what? I actually feel better already."

Kryten stated, "Actually, sir, he lied. We knew she was going to leave. We just didn't think she would do so in this suicidal manner." It didn't occur to him that he just blurted out the truth let alone how insensitive that sounded.

Rimmer's passive-aggressive attitude quickly faded. He looked as though he could grab them by the neck, choking the life out of them. "What are you talking about? What do you mean 'you _knew'_?"

"Krytes, you're not helping, man." Lister muttered.

"Answer me!" Rimmer shouted.

He scared the crap out of them. They'd seen him grumpy but never had they witnessed him truly furious like he was at the moment.

Lister looked back at Kryten; his look begged for assurance. He was certain Rimmer would hurt him no matter what he said, so he just came out with it. "It wasn't suicide. We didn't know exactly what she had planned but—"

"But you knew she was leaving." Rimmer interrupted, finishing his sentence for him.

Lister nodded. "Yeah… We all did."

Rimmer couldn't believe it. Everyone was in on something, and they couldn't be bothered to tell him? He stared incredulously at them. He wanted to rip off Kryten's head and use it to beat the ever living crap out of Lister right then and there.

"Let me see if I've got this," He moved from his usual console to roughly where Lister's was. "You knew she was going to leave, figured you wouldn't tell me about it until it was too little too late - or maybe not at all, and you just... let her go? Talk about selfish."

"She wasn't being selfish…"

"I wasn't talking about her!" Rimmer snipped. "I meant _you_!"

" _Me_?!" Lister shouted. "I tried getting her to stay, she didn't listen!"

"Clearly, you didn't try hard enough!" Tears clouded Rimmer's vision; everyone was simply a blur to him. The corners of his mouth twitched as he tried his best not to sob uncontrollably in front of them.

"Rimmer, as screwed up as it is, you _have_ to understand why she—"

"No, what I _have_ to understand is why didn't you stop her!"

"We told you: _We didn't know!_ " Lister yelled. "If we did we would have, believe me!"

"You didn't notice a Blue Midget was missing?!" he snapped.

Lister had enough of their shouting back and forth. They glared at each other for the longest time.

Eventually Lister broke the silence. "I should have— We should've..." He looked back at Kryten again, hoping he would chime in with something helpful but he never did. Lister continued, "tried harder."

"Why would you?" Rimmer quavered. "It was simpler for you all to just let the one thing that made me happy be yanked away from me. And _death!_ What better way to make sure I'm never happy again, eh?! You just couldn't _stand_ to see me happy, could you?"

"Hang on… you think we talked her into it or something? It wasn't like that. You gotta believe me."

Kryten finally interjected, "Sir, she left on her own accord. She didn't have any choice."

Rimmer glanced frigidly at him. He could barely form words at that point; he was becoming even more emotional. He quavered, "You knew how she felt about me. She wouldn't just—"

Lister cut him off. "Why else do you think we feel like crap right now? You're not the only one hurting."

Rimmer still had it worse than they did. He quaveringly exhaled. "How could—" He bit back the rest of the question; the answer didn't matter anymore. It was obvious to him she abandoned him. Despite being a hologram, he felt physically awful; he was sick to his non-existent stomach. He couldn't look at either of them anymore without getting immensely upset. "Get out." Rimmer muttered as he looked at the floor. Nobody left the room.

"Rimmer, listen to me!"

"Out!!" screamed Rimmer, giving Lister a look that said he was about to murder him where he stood.

"That's just what happens, isn't it?" Lister said. "People leave; people die. You just have to accept it and move on." Even that statement wasn't enough to make it okay, but Lister hoped it would at least convince himself that it was.

In a fit of anger Rimmer slammed his fist into Lister's drive room control panel, significantly damaging it. Kryten jumped in response, and Lister backed off. Rimmer turned his back to them, hunched over the console again. As he tightly shut his eyes, multiple hologrammatic tears fell, landing on his uniform sleeve. He stared at the wet spots a moment, while contemplating shutting himself down for good. Not even Lister was enough to stop him from doing it. There was no point in sticking around.

Rimmer would have asked if it truly was his fault, but he was certain that knowing the answer wouldn't make any difference. In the end he'd either loathe her or himself. At least if it were the latter it wouldn't be much of a change. He could never dislike her. She could throw him out of the air lock, leaving him in deep space, and he'd still pine for her.

He closed his eyes and sighed heavily. "If you go won't, I will." Rimmer said under his breath. He slowly stood up straight and walked out.

"Rimmer, wait." Lister calmly said. After all the shouting, softly speaking was all he could do; his voice was shot. He began going after Rimmer.

Kryten put a hand on Lister's shoulder, stopping him from going any further. "I think it would be best if you just let him be, sir..."

Lister knew he was right; he always was. Still, he wanted to say something, even if it was ill-advised. For all he knew Rimmer could still be afflicted by Rampancy. No one had checked to see if he was. Even if he wasn't afflicted, Lister had seen that look in Rimmer's eyes before. He'd seen it every day for the past twenty-four years. Lister wanted to stop him before he did something stupid. He pushed Kryten's hand off him and stormed after Rimmer.

* * *

"Rimmer, I just wanna talk!" shouted out as Lister ran up behind Rimmer.

"Leave me alone!" Rimmer yelled. He didn't bother to look at him; he couldn't stand to.

"Come on..." Lister begged.

Before Lister knew it, Rimmer had him pinned against the corridor wall by his neck. Lister knew exactly what Cat was going through in that moment. He gasped and gagged as he tried calling for help. Being thrust against the wall was enough to knock the wind out of him, strangling him was just overkill. Lister tried removing Rimmer's hands but it was useless: He had a death grip on him. Gradually, the edges of Lister's vision became blurry and dark. Suddenly it all stopped.

Lister was sure he was dead, but a pounding pressure in his head convinced him otherwise. He was, however, coming close to passing out. Rimmer realised it was all just useless violence and he let go of Lister. As much as he wanted to murder him, he couldn't lose two friends in one night.

Lister flopped to the floor; he tried to catch his breath. "What the smeg was that about?" he wondered.

He watched Rimmer as he walked away. He debated locking Rimmer in wherever he ended up so he wouldn't try killing Kryten next.

Kryten finally came to his aid just a few seconds too late. "I did tell you it wasn't a good idea, sir." he said, looking down at Lister.

"Yeah, Kryten. You did." Lister said, his voice hoarse from not only from having a screaming match with Rimmer, but from having his neck nearly crushed as well. He coughed a couple of times. "Was that Rampancy?" he asked.

"I don't think so. I think he's just grieving." Kryten replied. He took Lister's hand and helped him up off the ground.

"Thanks." He dusted himself off, and straightened his leather jacket and shirt out.

"He just needs his space." Kryten said. He gestured towards the drive room. "Should I fix your control panel now, sir?"

Lister nodded. "Yeah... C'mon. I'll help."


	10. You're Going to Be Spectacular

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter of series one. I hope you've enjoyed it. There's still plenty to come in this series!

Rimmer sat in Aria's cold, empty room on Red Dwarf. He couldn't believe she was gone. He was left wondering what made her do it; he wondered if it was something he did. He couldn't understand why she would do something like that. Was he that horrible? Perhaps if he let Lister talk earlier he'd know; he just didn't want to hear it at the time. Still, he truly felt like he was nothing in that moment; he felt like a failure. What happened tonight proved it. He failed to help her; he failed to get to her in time. He was angry at her for leaving him and at himself for allowing himself to get too close.

He went through her things, mainly because she did the same with his belongings, plus he was curious. He found a tape titled "Aria's _'On the Road Mix'_ ". He stuck it in the player. The first song was _Waves That Rolled You Under_ by Young Summer. He was sort of perplexed by it at first. He wasn't really into any other genre of music other than brass or Hammond organ music, but he was beginning to enjoy the song.

His head was killing him. He couldn't keep his eyes open, so he laid down in her bunk, just to close his eyes and try to feel better. He wound up falling asleep, while Aria's tape still played in the background. It made for some vivid dreams. He dreamt he saw her in one of the rooms on the ship. They didn't speak. They just held each other close, slowly dancing in the middle of the room.

Everyone had been looking for Rimmer, and finally found him fast asleep in Aria's bunk. That was the calmest they've seen him in the last 32 hours. Lister didn't believe Aria at first, but aside from the heightened emotional state he had been in, which was to be expected, it seemed as though he hadn't glitched at all like he did when she was here. In a way he actually was allergic to her.

Lister pulled a chair from the table over to the bedside. For a moment he stared at Rimmer. He'd never admit it to his face, but he felt bad for him; he felt guilty. Sure, no one knew she left, but they had an inkling she was going to. They just didn't know when. He hated himself for not doing more to stop her and he always would.

Lister gently placed a hand on Rimmer's shoulder and gently shook him. "Rimmer, wake up."

He was always quite the heavy sleeper; waking him wasn't going to be easy.

Rimmer stirred slightly. While sleeping he quavered, "Don't go."

Lister tried again. "Rimmer." he softly said.

Rimmer sharply inhaled as his eyelids shot open to see Lister's chirpy face, along side Cat, who was aloof, and Kryten, who had a look of slight distress over his well being.

"Oh, its you." He had a look of disdain. He hoped it was Aria somehow back from the dead. "I think I made it perfectly clear that I wanted to be alone."

"We were just checking on you." Lister said.

"Well, you've done that. Now you can go away." He sat up in bed, watching them not leave. He stared at them with derision. "Are you all deaf?"

Lister chose to ignore him, and he noticed the video tape he left on the table. He picked it up and looked at it. "What's this?" he asked.

Rimmer sighed. "It's a video message." he replied. "I haven't played it yet."

"Well, why don't we?" Lister wondered.

"It's from her. I know it is. I don't want to see it."

"You can't tell me you're not curious to know what she said."

"No, I'm not." He lied; he at least wanted to hear her voice again.

"Tough." Lister was about to take off with it to slide it into a video player elsewhere.

"Wait..." Rimmer went over to him and took the tape back. "I'll do it."

* * *

Rimmer stuck it into the tape machine and played the recorded message. There she was: Alive and as beautiful as ever.

"Boys," Aria did a quick "Rimmer salute". She rolled her eyes and laughed at herself for how ridiculous she was being. "If you're watching this, it means I'm gone."

Behind the sadness that clouded Rimmer's features he still smiled, albeit a hesitant one.

Aria's message continued, "I've barricaded myself. I don't know long I'll have." She put on a fake smile. "It's okay, though. I didn't have much use in this life. Well, there was one... thing... that made me useful."

Rimmer's lips quivered. He paused it. He couldn't stand listening to it anymore. Rimmer wiped his entire face with his hand, then covered his mouth. " _Why'd she have to be the one? It should have been me_." he thought.

"You don't have to do this, sir." Kryten exhorted.

As much as it killed Rimmer to see it, and let his emotions show in the process, he resumed the the message. "I'm going to say a few things - final wishes, I guess. Rimmer," Aria started.

Rimmer bit down hard on his lower lip to keep from losing it. The way she said his name was one of the many things he'd miss about her.

"I'm sorry. I wish it didn't have to..." Aria's voice quavered. She paused to put her emotions in check. "I'm just sorry." she reiterated. "Lister, Cat... be nicer to Holo-Man."

Rimmer slightly chuckled at the hypocrisy; calling him that while exhorting the others not to hurt him. Even in death she was looking out for him and he could appreciate that.

"He may be dead, but let's be honest: He has feelings." she added.

Lister looked to Rimmer, who was just focused on the screen. "Holo-Man?" he disdainfully asked.

Rimmer sniffled. "Not really important." he intoned. 

"Kryten, I don't really know what to say to you. Just... keep those blokes safe for me." Aria grudgingly smiled. "Now... this is the point where everyone who _isn't_ Arnold Judas Rimmer leaves the room."

Rimmer paused the video, and looked up at everyone else. He could tell they were wondering exactly what they had that made him so special to her in barely a days time. It was hard to explain; it was a connection he never had with anyone before. Not even with his estranged lover, Nirvana.

They left the room, leaving just him and recorded Aria, and Rimmer resumed the recording.

She sighed. "You... You really are something else." she chortled. "If I'd known how hard I would've fallen..." She chuckled. "Maybe I have gone mad. Leaving you wasn't easy. I wish I could have stayed. The reason why I had to, I―" She held her breath for a moment. "This wasn't you're fault." she quavered. She cleared her throat. "I'll spare you the 'It's Not You, It's Me' speech, because let's face it: It's cliché." It was also true.

Rimmer attempted to touch her but his fingers stopped at the screen.

"You have every right to resent me. I wouldn't have it any other way, really. I deserve it."

A loud banging, like gunshots came out of nowhere. Rimmer felt as scared as she looked; something had entered the room she was in. She aimed her gun at it and tried shooting but it was out of bullets. The recording suddenly stopped; there was nothing but static.

He rewound it, hoping there was more. He stared intently at the screen, frantically darting his eyes. He thought he might have missed something. At the very last second, he noticed she put her hand to her chest. It looked like there was something in her fingers.

"Did she get out?" he wondered aloud. He shook his head. "No, she couldn't have... She died.." He couldn't make sense of any of it. Rimmer looked down and stared at his wrist where Aria's vortex manipulator still rested. An idea struck him. "I don't know how you work," He tightly shut his eyes. "but please, if she's alive... take me to her." He pushed a random button, winching in anticipation of where he might end up. Curiously, he opened one eye to check his surroundings. He was still in the same spot. He glowered at it, yelling, "You _stupid, worthless_ —!"

"Couldn't get it to work could you, Holo-Man?"

Quickly his eyes lit up; he wheeled around, and there she was, behind him as usual.

"You know, ordinarily I don't mind being left on my own - I'll take solitude where I can get it - but you left me on Starbug; it was cold, and I was bored. You could've at least left me a magazine." she said.

He rushed over to her, practically tackling her. He held her tighter than ever. His reaction was just as much as a surprise to him as it was to her. He thought he'd be angry with her.

Aria stumbled backwards slightly. "I take it you've missed me."

He let go so he could see her face. It felt like ages since either one of them had seen each other. Rimmer hardly knew what to say in response to her being there: Alive. He poked her face to see if she was real but he poked her a little too hard.

She smacked his finger away. "Yes, I'm alive." she snipped. "Bloody thing wouldn't work in time, and I got... Well, you know." The "bloody thing" she referenced to was her new vortex manipulator necklace. It shorted out.

"How did you survive that?" he incredulously asked.

"Well..." she drawled in a way that was reminiscent of a certain time lord. "I didn't." She slightly chuckled.

Still lost and sceptical, Rimmer stared at her with his mouth slightly agape.

"In 2011, everyone one on Earth couldn't die, even if they were burnt to a crisp, decapitated or had a broken, twisted neck. Miracle Day, they called it. When my father and his friends stopped it, and everyone else returned to normal, I didn't. So..." She chortled, "here I am." She held out her arms. "I can't die. Guess you and I _do_ sort of have something in common, eh?"

Rimmer still didn't quite know what to say. As time passed, the anger he should've felt earlier had kicked in. He remembered the lengths she'd gone to just to get away from him. Suddenly he had no feelings for her other than resentment. His face hardened.

She fully expected that to be his reaction; she'd be concerned if it weren't. "Arnold, I wasn't lying when I said—"

He shook his head and lifted his hand. "Don't." It didn't matter to him anymore if she loved him. "What you did not only humiliated me… I don't think I'll ever trust anyone again."

She nodded. "Fair enough. I am sorry…"

He stared at the ground, rubbing his neck. "I think you should go." He took off her vortex manipulator from his wrist and handed it to her. "I believe this is yours."

She grudgingly smiled, and took it from him. She gave him a half smile, even though he wasn't looking at her. "You're smart. You'll figure it out soon enough."

A somewhat long, awkward pause fell between them. She drew in a deep breath, and reached out her hand to gently caress his cheek. Surprisingly enough he let her touch him. His skin felt soft and warm. It was completely unexpected for a hologram.

"You're going to be spectacular." she softly said as she continued to smile at him.

Rimmer let out a quavering sigh, and closed his eyes. In an instant he was calm; he was happy. The anger and resentment was gone. He placed his hand on her's, pressing it firmly against his face so he could truly feel her. It wasn't possible, but he couldn't bring himself to let go. As much as he hated her in that moment he couldn't help but still love her.

She studied him for a moment. Unable to resist the powerful urge, she closed her eyes, and leaned in to softly, yet deeply kiss him.

Rimmer inhaled sharply, and emitted a soft moan. It's been so long since anyone had kissed him. Many alarms went off in his brain telling him to stop it but he didn't. His hands splayed across her upper back, rubbing her while his simulated breath hitched.

Aria finally had her first kiss, and she didn't want it to end. Hesitant to do so, she stopped it before it went any further. He was still holding her hand to his face. She pressed her forehead against his, all the while keeping their eyes shut. Gradually, their hands dropped from his cheek to their sides, still clasped together tightly.

Her breath shook as she tried to come down from the euphoric high. Her eyes slowly opened while his were still shut. There was so much she wanted to say; I love you was especially one of them. However, it didn't matter what she said, he wouldn't remember it.

She pressed a button on her vortex manipulator. Aria began dematerialising. "10 minutes." she said. "I'll come back for you."

By the time Rimmer opened his eyes, she was gone. He stood alone, unsure of what to do next. He didn't want to do anything. There was no point of staying switched on if she wasn't going to be in his life. He was regretting telling her to leave.

Rimmer began to feel odd; he was having chest pains. A familiar wave of anxiety coupled with motion sickness washed over him. An immense glitch unexpectedly came on. It was worse than the others; it was agonising. He tried to yell for help but it was physically impossible. Rimmer became a laser show, with flares of electricity firing from his body. His body stiffened entirely, then fell to the floor, still flaring.

Lucky for Rimmer, Lister was walking by when he fell. He got help from Kryten, and they took him in for repairs. He barely made it. A few minutes longer and his light bee would have failed.

* * *

Hours passed since Rimmer fell unconscious. He was laid up on a stretcher. Slowly, he woke up. He felt different: Emptier than usual, like something was missing. The worst part is he didn't know what that thing was or why it was missing. He couldn't remember how he got here. " _Where even is here?_ " he wondered. In and out of sleep, he kept hearing Aria but he didn't recognise her voice. The Retcon helped but only to a small extent. He forgot about Aria; what she looked, smelled, felt and sounded like, however he still had bits and pieces that didn't make sense.

"Rimmer? Are you alright?" Lister asked. He was in the room with Rimmer, checking in on him.

Little by little, Rimmer's eyes opened again. Wincing painfully, and rubbing the side of his head he wondered, "What happened? Where am I?"

"You're in the medi-bay now. We had to do a restore." Lister replied.

They didn't do anything of the sort. Kryten injected the Retcon and that was it. Lister was lying to Rimmer and it pained him. It wouldn't do any good to tell Rimmer. It would just send him back to where he was before: Malfunctioning and nearly dead. Aria didn't have to be there; the full memories alone would be enough to start it all over again.

"Am I going to be okay?" Rimmer asked, nervous something might have been wrong.

"Yeah." Lister answered. He nodded his head. "You're going to be okay." He smiled, despite being sad. On top of lying to his friend he was already missing Aria, even though he hardly knew her.

Rimmer began falling asleep. He had a long, rough day and a half. If he could sleep forever he would. Rimmer opened his eyes one last time, only to find Kryten and Cat were suddenly in the room.

"Sorry. I thought they should see you while you're still somewhat awake." Lister said.

Cat scoffed. "Not me. I was perfectly content with sleepin'."

"Try getting some more rest, sir." Kryten softly exhorted Rimmer.

"Okay." Cat said, not realising he wasn’t talking to him. He then left the room to go back to bed.

Rimmer was too exhausted, too mentally drained to object to their being with him, or to Kryten telling him what to do. He simply nodded in response. Eventually he asked them, "You're going to be here when I wake up, right?"

None of them knew what to make of that. It wasn't as if they _could_ go anywhere, they were in deep space. Still, the notion of being abandoned was still in Rimmer's mind. He was scared of it happening again.

"We'll be here." Lister said, smiling fondly at him. For once, in the many years they've known each other, he actually, genuinely smiled at Rimmer.  

* * *

Rimmer stayed in recovery for over a week, still afflicted with Rampancy to a small degree. For the most part he'd be fine; it was manageable. Though, the few odd behavioural changes still occurred, and only Kryten took notice. Lister figured it was just Rimmer being himself while Cat didn't give a damn.

In the coming months he would go on to do many great - and some completely insane - things. His adventures with the crew would be bizarre, as usual. He would save the lives of Lister and Cat from a crazy medi-bot who was "no longer insane", as per a note he had gotten, Rimmer would find out who his true father was, who wasn't the military crazed, child abuser he loathed, finally freeing him of the constant weight of needing to please him. All sorts of things, while never remembering who Aria was or what she meant to him. In the end she was right: He would be spectacular.


End file.
